The most extraordinary administrative survival of the battle is that nine of the destroyed villages around Verdun were never deleted from the French commune register — instead, each was classified as having "died for France" and continues to exist as a legal entity without inhabitants. Each has an appointed mayor who maintains the village's records.
Fleury-devant-Douaumont is the easiest to visit, but small signposted paths through the forest mark several of the others. Wooden boards at each former village list the families who lived there in 1914 and the buildings — bakery, schoolhouse, church — that stood at each point. The destroyed villages collectively are one of the most singular memorials in Europe.