The Village of the Martyrs

The atrocities the Nazis committed are legendary, but most of the attention falls on the Holocaust, and rightly so.

One of the atrocities committed by the SS in World War II is almost never spoken of in the United States, but it is something that is still taught in French schools, and it is but one example of many where the Third Reich took out its anger on civilians.

In 1944, near the town of Limoges in Limousin, French Resistance fighters killed an SS officer and captured another. As the D-Day landings in Normandy had just taken place, it was a time of hope for the French and panic for the Germans.

Over the following days, the Germans planned their retaliation for the killing of their officer. That retaliation was played out June 10 in the town of Oradour-sur-Glane.
SS soldiers - including some from Alsace, which had been disputed by France and Germany for nearly a century - rounded up almost 700 civilians and murdered them.

The men were shot at various points in the small town, and the women and children were herded into the church where they were machine-gunned and then burned.

The entire town was razed, with every building looted and burned.

When General Charles de Gaulle saw the city and heard of the atrocity committed there, he ordered the city be left as a reminder of what happened. To this day, visitors can walk the dead streets, passing what used to be houses and businesses, many with signs telling the barest details of the former inhabitants.
The streets today have been cleared of rubble, much of that having been done when the dead were removed a few days after the attack.

One of the few survivors wrote in his memoirs that when the Germans rounded them up, everyone thought it was an identity paper check. They were herded to different locations before a grenade going off signaled the Germans to simultaneously open fire.

The whole town is a moving experience. It reminded me somewhat of Pompeii, but even though Pompeii was ruined and its inhabitants died in their masses, there is one key difference - Oradour-sur-Glane was wiped out by people, not a devastating volcanic eruption.

Walking into the church where hundreds lost their lives, it was hard to imagine what kind of 'soldier' could set up a machine gun and mow down women and children.Bullet holes still scar the inside of the walls, and at one spot there is a memorial to those whom the village had lost in the First World War. In place by World War II, it too is perforated by machine gun bullets as the same enemy visited its hatred on the town.The town's cemetery has a memorial to those killed, with gravestones throughout the cemetery bearing images of "our dear martyrs." At the memorial, two coffers hold the last remnants of some of those who were never identified - charred pieces of bone.

Even though I know the history of many of the atrocities committed in World War II, seeing such a stark reminder of what those numbers in history books actually mean was a moving experience.

Fort Sumter – 150 years later

Charleston, South Carolina, might be home to more Revolutionary War sites than Civil War sites, but 150 years ago, the first shots of the Civil War were fired in the harbor, at a place called Fort Sumter.

The fort was one of the must-see stops on my trip to Charleston in December. As a kid, I had always been interested in the Civil War, and while some of my friends could tell you how many home runs Babe Ruth hit in his career, I could tell you a trained soldier was expected to fire three shots per minute out of a muzzleloading musket, and other minutiae and historical trivia.

Riding a ferry to the fort takes the better part of 30 minutes, and my first sight of it was just a low dark spot on the horizon, splitting sea and sky on a nice day.

The walls used to be much taller, mounting guns that protected the harbor from seaborne attack.

But it wouldn’t be seaborne attack on April 12, 1861, that would eventually lead to the fort’s downfall.

Confederate gunners opened fire from other nearby fortifications after a signal shot that exploded over Fort Sumter. When I stood in the fort’s courtyard, surrounded by ruined walls and the evidence of the shelling and fire that ensued, I tried to imagine what the fort must have been like back then.

Once the fort had been shelled for 34 hours, a fire broke out, and Maj. Robert Anderson, the fort’s commander, surrendered his garrison rather than let it be slaughtered.

Today, visitors can walk around the fort, climb atop the remains and visit the museum inside, which contains numerous artifacts from the era as well as putting the site into the greater context of the conflict.

Since the fort is a national park, it is well-kept, and guides give free talks and answer questions.

Old forts aren’t at the top of everyone’s travel list, and Charleston has much to offer outside of historical sites (though it has plenty of those). However, Fort Sumter was the first battle in a long war that ended up killing more Americans than any other war in history. If you're at all interested in American history, the site is a must-see.

For up-to-date directions on how to get to the fort, click the link at the top of the article, which will take you to the official site.

Verdun

Nothing symbolizes the horror and brutality of World War I for the French more than Verdun.

During the 10-month battle in 1916, French losses were estimated at about 400,000 killed, wounded and missing. German losses were less, at about 350,000, though estimates vary.

The soldiers lived like rats in trenches, constantly enduring enemy artillery fire and attacks. Even sending messages was dangerous, as couriers had an extremely short life expectancy. If they weren't killed by enemy artillery, poison gas, sniper fire or bayonets, the soldiers suffered from illnesses, fatigue and what we would today call shell shock.

Despite how horrific a place Verdun was, I still wanted to visit the battlefield. Understanding the French experience in World War I makes it clear why the country fell so fast in World War II, when much of the population thought that living under German occupation would be a far smaller price to pay than another war, since World War I left one in three French men between 17 and 33 dead.

The town itself is easy to find and is relatively close to Nancy. If you are, like me, interested in history, then Verdun is a must. The town has always been a fortress city, and the Germans and French have fought over it several times.

One interesting aspect of Verdun's history revolves around two French soldiers who served there - Charles de Gaulle and Philippe Petain. Petain was considered the hero of Verdun, and he commanded the French forces there for much of the battle. De Gaulle, who was inspired by Petain long before the battle, was captured at Verdun. Petain would later collaborate with the Germans in World War II and be a figurehead for the Vichy French government while de Gaulle would lead the Free French forces during World War II and emerge a hero, famously marching down the main boulevards of Paris when the city was liberated in 1944 before German snipers had been cleared out.

When I arrived in Verdun, it was cloudy, and the recent rain had stopped. After passing through the fortified gate that guards one end of a bridge over the Meuse River, I came to the visitor center, which was unfortunately closed.

A map near the visitor center showed the way to many of the sites, and after looking at statues and memorials in the center of town, I hopped in my car and drove to Fort Vaux, Fort Douaumont and the iconic Ossuaire.

Forts Vaux and Douaumont played key roles in the battle, and both were taken by the Germans, then retaken by the French. Each is worth a post in its own right, so I'll save that for later.

Wandering the battlefield is possible, but signs warn visitors to stay on the paths. Essentially, they all sum up the same thing: The weapons used in 1916 are still in the ground, and they can kill you just as easily today as they could 90 years ago.

What was once a war-torn moonscape dotted with shattered tree stumps is once again peppered with woods. Between the tree trunks, the reminders of the war are still visible - earth cratered from artillery shells, half-filled-in trenches where men used to live and concrete gun positions that have long since had their weapons removed.

Reaching the Ossuaire, in front of which about 15,000 French soldiers are buried, I was struck by the fact that this plays such an important role in French history, and I don't even remember it being mentioned in my history classes in America - and I have a minor in history from a university.

In the National World War One Museum in Kansas City, Missouri, there is a section on Verdun. Two quotes from the combatants stood out to me when I was there.

"Shells of all caliber kept raining in our sector. The trenches had disappeared, filled with earth. The air was unbreathable. Our blinded, wounded, crawling and shouting soldiers kept falling on top of us and died splashing us with their blood. It was living hell." - A French infantryman.

The second quote is from a German soldier at Verdun: "Verdun transformed men's souls. Whoever floundered through this mass full of the shrieking and dying had passed the last frontier of life and thus bore deep within him the leaden memory of a place that lies between life and death."

The soldiers of both sides experienced hell at Verdun, and the huge Ossuaire, though open to the public and containing displays, is the final resting place of some 130,000 soldiers from both sides who were unable to be identified.

A tower rising from the middle of the Ossuaire is styled in the shape of an artillery shell, and on the way to the top, visitors can see mannequins dressed in period uniforms as well as some of the weaponry used.

The top of the tower affords a view of the battlefield that can't be had anywhere else. At the base of the tower, visitors can watch a short film that explains the reason for the war and the battle itself along with the stupidity - and there's really no other word for it - of that particular conflict.

The last place I stopped was at one of the communication trenches. With its moss-covered, rotting timbers still in place, I could just imagine the hundreds of men who must have passed through it. Communication trenches connected the various trench lines and allowed men to move between them without as much risk of being spotted by the enemy. They almost always moved at night, and the only guidance a man had was to stay close to the man in front of him. There were countless instances of units getting lost, then finding themselves on exposed ground at dawn, where alert artillery observers saw them. Within minutes, they would be shelled and killed.

Verdun, or any battlefield, for that matter, is not the place to go if you want to experience the joie de vivre for which France is so famous. If you want to understand France, and especially its role in the 20th century, however, I think Verdun is a place that must be visited, or at least understood.

A soldier killed Nov. 9, 1918.
For him, the armistice came two days too late.

If you're interested about the battle of Verdun, I recommend Alistair Horne's "The Price of Glory: Verdun, 1916." Written in the 1960s, Horne - a British historian - tends to editorialize a little bit, but the book provides a good explanation for the battle without expecting a lot of prior knowledge of the war.

Hundredth Post - My Five Favorites

After 99 previous posts, I have a few I particularly like, so I'll just list them here.

I'm not sure if I like them for the merit of the writing, the subject matter or from remembering the experience, but they stick out to me as my favorites. Click on the bold text for the original article.

Paris Throws a Party
This was my first blog post, and I originally wrote it as an assignment for my column and review writing class in college. I had a habit of procrastinating, and that assignment was no different. I wrote it an hour before it was due in The State Hornet newsroom while the fire alarm was going off over my head and my editor was interviewing me for a copy editing position (no joke). It worked out, since I got an A on the assignment, I got the copy editing job and the school didn't burn down.

Bruges: Belgium's Jewel
In the movie In Bruges, the characters hate this canal city that was the financial capital of Europe in the past. I happen to love it, and I plan on returning. It's tied with Rothenburg ob der Tauber for my favorite small town in the world.

Prague at Dawn
I really enjoyed Prague. It had a special appeal as it was my first trip to a former Communist Bloc country. Wandering around the city by myself an hour before dawn and watching it wake up was a unique experience, and one I hope to replicate the next time I'm in Paris.

A visit to Normandy
Having minored in European history in college, and having been interested in World War II before that, Normandy always held a special fascination with me. Growing up, I never thought I would get the chance to visit the battlefield.

The Mad King's Fairy Tale Castle
Schloss Neuschwanstein is the epitome of a fairy tale castle, and it should be at the top of the list for anyone visiting Germany. Disney based a castle on it, and it has graced thousands of postcards, TV shows and movies. The views from the top of the Alps and the nearby lowlands are fantastic, and a walk across the wood-planked bridge nearby isn't for those with a fear of heights.

Breaking Tradition

It's been more than a decade since my family first broke a long-standing tradition. Every Fourth of July, my aunts, uncles, grandparents and a few neighbors met at our house for a barbecue, swimming and fireworks in the court. But the summer after my eighth-grade year, we decided we had to be in Washington, D.C., for the celebration of independence.

Since it's been so long, the fog of time has stolen some of my memories, but it was my first visit to the capital, and there are some things you just can't forget about being there - on that day in particular.

Independence Day happened to come at the tail end of a trip through the New England states. We visited Lexington and Concord, in Massachusetts, where farmers first stood up in armed conflict against the greatest military power in the world, and fired the first shots in a long war that would end with 13 free states struggling to form a government everyone could agree on.

A few days later, we were at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, and saw the "high water mark" of the Confederate advances into the northern states and where President Lincoln gave the famous Gettysburg Address. Rows of cannon, their bronze barrels now green with exposure to the elements, stand as a silent testament to the fury that opposing sides of the country felt for each other.

In Washington, D.C., we saw the National Mall, with the Washington Monument, Lincoln Memorial and all the other sights I had learned about in history classes. A few people waded in the reflecting pool, the same one Martin Luther King, Jr., looked into when he gave his "I Have a Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial.

Walking the streets on the Fourth of July, everyone was in a festive mood. Even a homeless man wore an ostentatious top hat of red, white and blue. Another man played patriotic songs on his trumpet. Red, white and blue decorations were everywhere, and it was nearly impossible to find a spot where I couldn't see an American Flag.

If the day had been festive, the night was fantastic. When darkness fell, we were back at the Lincoln Memorial, sitting on the steps facing the Washington Monument. The din of conversation hushed as the first fireworks exploded over the top of the marble obelisk and The Star Spangled Banner was blasted over loudspeakers. When I had been to fireworks shows before, in Old Sacramento and the fairgrounds, I always looked forward to the grand finale. In D.C., the entire show was the grand finale, and it lasted a long time.

I don't really remember what we did after the fireworks show, if anything, and I don't know if that was the last day of our trip or not, but in the years that have come and gone since then, that is the thing I remember most about the trip. We even (randomly) have a Christmas ornament that depicts the scene, complete with lights and fireworks sounds.

Living on the West Coast and not being surrounded by the country's history, it is often easy to forget where we came from. A trip to New England brings the important events in the country's history to the forefront like little else can, and reminds us all that the United States has seen great successes, and great tragedies, but there are always people willing to sacrifice to make the country better, and be they soldiers, politicians, civil rights leaders or just the common voters, they have helped make this country what it is, and will continue to do so in future generations.

64 Years Ago Today...

The tide was out, and the waves lapped gently at the undisturbed sand. A few people walked along the shore farther up, but this was no beach for sunbathing or revelry. It had only been a short six decades since this was the scene of the action on what has been called the climactic day of the 20^th century.

Omaha beach was a far cry from what it was on that day. I stood at the waterline and faced inland, seeing the bluffs thousands of men had to assault. I’d seen all the D-Day movies and thought I had as good of a sense as any civilian can of what those men went through. One thing I can say now is that not a single one of those movies, be it The Longest Day or Saving Private Ryan, can do justice to how far it is from the waterline to the small shale berm that offered the first real cover.

I walked across the beach, trying to imagine what it must have been like to see the cliffs not full of green vegetation, but enemy soldiers, the muzzle flashes and tracers creating a terrible light show. I realized I couldn’t do it. A split-second later, I realized I didn’t want to.

Above the beach stood roughly 10,000 solemn reminders of what the ground I stood on cost. The immaculately kept lawns and monuments at the cemetery at St. Laurent are interrupted only by white crosses and stars of David, each signifying a life lost. Most have the fallen soldier’s name and unit on them. Some do not. The etching on one marble cross I looked at read, “Here rests in honored glory a comrade in arms known but to God.” I wondered who he was. Probably a lot like me.

The cemetery is not just for the soldiers killed on D-Day, but includes the dead from the invasion to the end of the war. Some graves were even marked after the cessation of hostilities.

A few rows away and maybe 30 yards down, I saw two old men. Each wore a VFW hat, and they laid a bouquet of flowers by a grave. I wanted to know their stories, and I wanted to thank them. But most of all I did not want to interrupt their reunion, such as it was, with someone they had clearly cared a great deal for. I swallowed and then headed back to my car.

It was only a short drive to Pointe du Hoc, the sheer cliffs that, on June 6, 1944, U.S. Army Rangers had scaled and taken. The battlefield has not really been altered since that day. The whole area is still scarred with craters from naval guns and bombs. Visitors can walk all over, inside what is left of the German bunkers and in the craters. As I stood in the base of a crater, the world disappeared. The hole was about 10 feet deep, and 20 feet across. How anyone could have survived such a bombardment I will never understand.

Just east of Omaha beach, on the road back to the town of Bayeux, is a German gun battery at Longues-sur-Mer. The four gun bunkers still house the artillery that fired on Allied warships during the invasion. As with Pointe du Hoc, the area was open, and I was able to go in each bunker. All were damaged to some extent from aerial and naval bombardment.

As I drove to Bayeux, I was struck by how beautiful the countryside is. Stone houses dot the landscape amid fields secluded by the hedgerows that had been hell to fight through. I rolled the window down and heard the distant clanking of a cowbell. Storybook villages and stone manors passed in the distance.

The town of Bayeux itself was alive. Being so close to the anniversary of the landings, it was adorned with French, British, Canadian and American flags. Red, white and blue ribbons hung from the shops, and welcoming French citizens smiled at me as I stopped for food. I did not have time to see the famous Bayeux Tapestry, but it is displayed in the town as well.

My final stop was another cemetery, near the town of Bayeux. This one was much smaller than the American cemetery, split between British and German soldiers. It stands as a stark reminder that, even though as an American I was most interested in discovering what my countrymen had done, it was a multinational Allied force that liberated France. And while the Germans were the enemy, I couldn’t overlook the fact that some of the men buried a few yards away were really no different from me.

I left Normandy the next day. It is a land of immense natural and cultural beauty, despite the constant reminders of the life-and-death struggle of the past century, and many long before that, even. It is a place I wish everyone could see, because, though I left Normandy, Normandy will never leave me.