Liberation of Paris
Today is the 61st anniversary of the liberation of Paris which will be commemorated by various ceremonies during the day. The city surrendered in June 1940 after the German army had overrun France. A rebellion started in August 1944, sparked off by the Allies' move out from Normandy and approach to Paris. When General Leclerc arrived at the city with an armoured division barely a week later, General von Choltitz surrendered, fortunately without first destroying the city as he'd been ordered to.
It's hard sometimes to feel a personal connection to the war. Apart from being two generations removed from it, I grew up in New Zealand, far away from it all. NZ did declare war immediately in 1939 and paid dearly in terms of troops, but because the war didn't happen on its soil, it didn't mark the national psyche the way it did the Europeans'. That said, it was disturbing to stand on the Palais de Chaillot's terrace with its view of the Eiffel Tower, knowing that Hitler had once stood there. Get your grubby feet off my city, damn it!
But really, it's impossible to forget Paris was an occupied city in recent history. It's not so much the big monuments but the continual small reminders in the form of plaques at spots where various people were killed by the Nazis during the rebellion: students, members of the Resistance, police, and so forth. Last week, I walked past a plaque belonging to a gardien de la paix who had been shot on the 19th of August 1944. Someone had tied flowers bound with a red, white and blue ribbon to a bracket below the plaque to mark the anniversary of his death.
It's hard sometimes to feel a personal connection to the war. Apart from being two generations removed from it, I grew up in New Zealand, far away from it all. NZ did declare war immediately in 1939 and paid dearly in terms of troops, but because the war didn't happen on its soil, it didn't mark the national psyche the way it did the Europeans'. That said, it was disturbing to stand on the Palais de Chaillot's terrace with its view of the Eiffel Tower, knowing that Hitler had once stood there. Get your grubby feet off my city, damn it!
But really, it's impossible to forget Paris was an occupied city in recent history. It's not so much the big monuments but the continual small reminders in the form of plaques at spots where various people were killed by the Nazis during the rebellion: students, members of the Resistance, police, and so forth. Last week, I walked past a plaque belonging to a gardien de la paix who had been shot on the 19th of August 1944. Someone had tied flowers bound with a red, white and blue ribbon to a bracket below the plaque to mark the anniversary of his death.