This time last year.. a pilgrimage.

[Motobiker]

Many moons ago, while researching a more pleasant journey from the tunnel at calais, to the Ardennes, I came across a little patch of green, It looked very much like a War Cemetery.

 

 

Having a closer look.. even more like a Cemetery...  on the Dunkirk veterans Road, a clue of sorts.

 

 

Anyway, I found out what it was, The Scene of one of two massacres, mass murder of British and French soldiers that happened during the Dunkirk escape. Both unlucky enough to be caught by Nazi Fanatics - SS. who had zero respect for the rules of war and the Geneva Convention.

 

So, anyway, last year with a few hours time on my hands I went to this place. Im always deeply moved by War cemeteries for some reason, despite being Irish (by birth) and have no connection to WW2. Though a great uncle died in WW1. Connaught Rangers. that's so far back and removed, there's little or no connection. though one day I will pay him a visit.

 

Anyway.. this place. 

 

 

So,  A replica of the barn was built, and English oak tress planted for each of the men that died.  A few managed to survive and escape and were rather more fortunate to be captured by ordinary German Soldiers and so were treated of their wounds and spent the remainder of the war in POW camps.  But.. these poor men that died. So utterly barbaric. We tend to think of Dunkirk as a great win, almost the entire army rescued.. but at a cost. 

 

 

Afterward I went to the local cemetery where these men are buried.. in a further active of obscenity - the SS stripped them of all ID before the slaughter, So.. the men were buried together in a mass grave, with the neat rows of stones close by.

 

 

Its not just the graves that move me, its the personal messages on them. a couple of lines allowed to the bereaved.  - The middle one there: "Only one to the world, but all the world to us. Our Son."

And of course... I visited the unknowns.  the 4 of them - together.

 

 

 

You can read the wikipedia page... if you want.  https://tinyurl.com/n3hosrl

[boboneleg]

Nice one, I have visited a war cemetary in that area to help my mate find his Uncle's grave.  Brings a tear to your eye when you're there.

[XTreme]

Brilliant Tony.......this is one for @MooN!

[Catteeclan]

Been to France a few times now and I'm always impressed how well these areas are kept.

[Motobiker]

41 minutes ago, Catteeclan said:

Been to France a few times now and I'm always impressed how well these areas are kept.

You tend to find that in these small villages, in particular. There is a deep reverence given by the locals to these places. There is always a visitors book and reading the entries is really quite illuminating. "Thank you for our freedom." is a very common comment.  What happened at the Barn was almost completely forgotten, it was the local mayor who decided this couldn't be allowed to happen and the memorial is entirely down to him.  The same goes for the much smaller burial sites, a corner maybe of a village cemetery with just a few, maybe just one grave. Not ignored. They are never ignored. The locals still care for them. In between the normal 11/11 day of special recognition.