Normandy's fields

While collecting my euros at the local bank, a man who had just returned from the memorials in Normandy turned to me and said that no one could leave without shedding a heart wrenching tear.  His remark came back to me when I stood among the rows and rows of white marble crosses at the American memorial. I felt only overwhelming sorrow. There were 9,387 headstones, 1,557 names of the missing and, most poignantly, 45 sets of brothers. In reality, these men were all someone’s brothers, or fathers, or sons, cousins, nephews, husbands, uncles, sweethearts, the paperboy, the butcher, the tailor, the boy next door. The same held true for the Canadian and British divisions who fought that longest day on Gold, Juno and Sword beaches where 4,963 men perished. And last, there is a German memorial and cemetery nearby, where 21,222 men are buried. Therein lies the true meaning of compassion: to suffer together.

"The soldiers' graves are the greatest preachers of peace" Albert Schweitzer.

The famous WWI poem In Flanders Fields came to mind, and how well its import applied here:

In Flanders fields the poppies blow,

between the crosses row on row,

that mark our place; and in the sky


the larks, still bravely singing, fly


scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago


we lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,


loved and were loved, and now we lie


in Flanders fields.

While there is much to be said for the quiet dignity of the memorials, my lasting impression is of the surrounding countryside. During our travels between the beaches, the town of Ste-Mere-Eglise, and ultimately the train station at Bayeux that was to return us to Paris, I was struck by the continuing homage the French pay to the fallen men in service. There is a stained glass window in a local church that depicts the paratroopers sailing down, recalling General Eisenhower's remark: "boys jumped from the planes; men landed on the ground", and another church window “they have come back 6 June 1944”.  Here and there, small marble plaques were embedded in walls, each memorializing a youth who was killed in the war. Fresh flowers filled the vase that graced each plaque. Ambling along the roads, we passed farms, with cows and chickens, and always, a French flag near the house, waving in the breeze and, just as often, there was an American flag waving below it. Occasionally, a Union Jack flew, acknowledging the British commonwealth that, at the time, included Canada and Australia. 

The same held true throughout Paris, even the train station had a war memorial bearing the flags of their various allies. The French  have not forgotten the sacrifices made by the rest of the world on their behalf, nor have they avoided the shame of their own complicity in the deaths of 200,000 French Jews, as shown by the memorial to the Jews in the Montparnasse Cemetery.