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Seeds of war yield gardens of stone
For the victors of 2 world conflicts, France's cemeteries burst with pride, grief and honour
By PETER WORTHINGTON Sun, July 29, 2007
OMAHA BEACH, NORMANDY -- What do the World War I and World War II military cemeteries in France tell us about the nations that fought those devastating wars -- and the soldiers and airmen buried there?
Apart from the relative youth of those who died in the service of their countries, the cemeteries are distinct from one another.
Generally, they are solemn places that evoke the observation of the great humanitarian and Nobel Peace Prize winner (1952) Albert Schweitzer: "War graves are the best inducement towards peace."
The most awesome war cemetery in France is the American one at Omaha Beach (Colleville-sur-Mer), where roughly the same number of Americans were killed on D-Day (about 2,400) as died on 9/11.
In the cemetery, nearly 10,000 American servicemen (and four women) are buried, each one beneath an inscribed white stone cross or a Star of David (where applicable). In all, 125,000 American dead are buried in France.
GRANDIOSE SCALE
Curiously, the very vastness of the Normandy cemetery tends to be -- how to put it? -- almost grandiose and overstated.
I suspect it's the only war cemetery where you pass through a metal detector before entering the visitors centre -- the only entrance to the cemetery. That alone is a political comment, and a reflection on America's status in Europe.
A somewhat effeminate statue at the main memorial, depicting "the Spirit of Youth Rising from the Waves" is more mindful of an Italian, or Confederate civil war statue -- overly ornate and flamboyant considering the sombre nature of what war graves represent. (Often it's losers in wars who tend to have the most dramatic memorials).
The German war graves are modest, harsh and inexpressibly gloomy. I facetiously suggested they were Darth Vader cemeteries -- black stone crosses, with each grave marked by a plaque in the manicured, green grass. Each has a name, followed by the stark phrase: "A German soldier."
At La Cambe cemetery, some 21,000 Germans are buried -- a relatively small portion of the 228,000 Germans buried in 23 cemeteries from WWII -- and 768,000 interred in 192 cemeteries from WWI.
At each German war cemetery I visited, Schweitzer's remark carried poignant meaning.
The German government, unlike Canadian, British and U.S. governments, is not responsible for these cemeteries, which are maintained by the German War Graves Commission, sustained by private donations.
At Italy's Monte Cassino, where German paratroopers held off the Allies until Polish troops eventually rousted them from the ruins of the Benedictine monastery, German dead are buried four to a grave, in a cemetery of crushed stone instead of grass. Again stark, cold, sad and forbidding -- unlike Cassino's British-Canadian cemetery, abloom in flowers, tended grass, with small flags from pilgrims on select graves.
Poles have the place of honour. Their dead are buried atop the mountain.
In France, British and Canadian war dead are scattered in comparatively small cemeteries across the northwest countryside. In my view, they are the most poignant -- perhaps because of my heritage.
YANKS COME HOME
Americans prefer to take their war dead home for burial. British and Canadians tend to the view of poet Rupert Brooke: "If I should die, think only this of me: That there is some corner of a foreign field that is forever England." Or Canada -- certainly from WWI, WWII and Korea.
Driving along a peaceful highway, or small road, amid pastoral France, with farmland awash in peace, and rolling fields serene with cattle and crops, likely as not one suddenly encounters a small war cemetery that serves as a reminder that today's peaceful countryside was purchased at a terrible cost in young lives from Britain, Canada, and the old Empire and its Commonwealth successor.
Vimy Ridge, of course, is Vimy Ridge -- precious to the history of Canada and the memories of the nation. Too often a headstone, bearing a single maple leaf, carries the inscription: "A Canadian soldier, known only unto God" Thousands of these.
Then there are the dead of Dieppe, the gallant but incredibly foolish 1942 raid by troops of Canada's 2nd Division (planned, approved, and ordered by Lord Louis Mountbatten, whose obstinacy was legendary and destructive).
Dieppe was our greatest disaster of WWII -- some 80% of 5,000 Canadians were casualties -- testimony to the grit of the troops in question. Two Victoria Crosses were won that day -- and official rationalizing that every life lost at Dieppe meant 10 lives saved on D-Day from the lessons learned. What nonsense! Does one need a Dieppe to prove that a frontal assault with insufficient air and naval gun support on beaches defended by gun emplacements on surrounding cliffs is unlikely to succeed?
British-Canadian war graves are superbly cared for.
They are places of curious peace and tranquillity. The mostly young men buried there form a kinship in death that is somehow noble and reassuring -- better they rest together in immortality than be taken home to be buried separately in obscure cemeteries across Canada, soon to become anonymous.
The French treat our war dead with generosity and reverence: Unknown people place flowers on individual graves. The British headstones have carvings of regimental badges in the stone. Every day, Canadians, British and French visit these war cemeteries, and sign remembrance books at each site.
GERMANS LONELY
By contrast, German cemeteries are lonely places, largely unvisited, and then mostly, one assumes, by kinfolk. There is little hope in these, while the American and Allied war cemeteries burst with pride, grief and honour. Remembrance books are filled with expressions of gratitude for those who died in Canada's name.
German tourists that one meets in France today tend to treat World Wars I and II as something foreign and alien -- unlike Canadians and British who identify with their war dead.
Only at Oradour-sur-Glane do all visitors react with horror -- especially German. Here, four days after D-Day in June 1944, this quiet village was pillaged and burned by the 4th Waffen SS. Men and boys were summarily shot. Women and small children were herded into the church, which was set on fire. Some 650 residents were systematically slaughtered.
Today, Oradour remains as a charred memorial, prams, bicycles, gutted cars still in place -- a greater testament for peace than even Albert Schweitzer's heartfelt words.
