Mémorial de Caen / Caen Memorial History and Peace Museum

[Deleted]

This was my third trip to the Mémorial de Caen but only the first time that I was able to spend as much time as I wanted. The first time was just a brief stop on a trip with my parents. We were going to Saint Malo or something like that. When they saw what a massive thing it was, they said "Oh, go ahead and visit if you want. We'll wait for you." How many times has that sort of statement killed all desire to do something for some of us? Several years later, I returned with two American friends, back when I still had American friends. I was actually just taking them to Omaha Beach and the cemetery for the day, but we stopped on the way back. They found it interesting at first but then they got bored and we had to leave. Stoopid Merkins! I have been wanting to return for years, and finally I did so.

Walking from the parking lot, I saw that there is now a statue that wasn't there before.



I will have more to say about this statue at the end of the report.



The architecture is a bit stark and probably reminiscent of a German blockhaus.

It was just opening as I arrived, but in spite of the season there was a flood of people converging on the place. There are about 20 hotels clustered around the Memorial now (last time, there were maybe 5 hotels) and groups were being marched to the entrance right at opening time. On top of that, there were about 6 school groups of junior high age ("collège") being taken there by their teachers.

The reception area is quite big and is clearly designed for sheltering large groups.

As a lone visitor, I had a fantastic advantage, because it takes a long time to get groups organised and collect their tickets, etc. So I was the very first person in the museum. The first downward curve takes you from the end of the Great War through the years to the rise of Hitler and Mussolini, with all of the details about the tensions that were rising. I did not take a picture of the 50,000,000 mark note because I will never understand how that sort of thing happens, even if it happened in Zimbabwe only a few years ago.

The Kellogg-Briand pact sounded like a good idea, but there must have been something wrong with it.



War broke out.



These are the first areas that the Reich occupied or annexed even before the shooting started.

[Deleted]

It was time to descend more deeply into the conflict.



Believe me, it is fantastic to have a place like this all to yourself instead of being in a crowd.





There were numerous film projections and other audiovisual displays along the way.





This showcased numerous items to the glory of Maréchal Pétain, the hero of the Great War.



Destruction loomed.



Tools of war used by both sides.



"Abandoned populations, trust the German soldier!"



We've seen these in so many of the movies.



A local lad was executed for sending a carrier pigeon to England.



This screen displayed German control creeping across France.





The first resistance graffiti began to appear.



Meanwhile, everybody had to use ration coupons for everything: food, clothing, shoes...



Basic products of the time.



A forbidden object.

[htmb]

I'm looking forward to seeing more of this report. The museum certainly appears to be very nicely done.

I also would like to visit before the crowds. It makes it much easier to take photos, plus gives you the time and solicitude to contemplate the seriousness and horror of war events and occupation.

And, of course, the outside statue you showed is the "sister" of one that was placed on our university campus for a few years. I found the size of the thing quite impressive, and the background stories interesting, as well.

[mich64]

We missed visiting this Memorial site on our two night stay in Caen so I too am looking forward to this. At first glance, it is quite similar to The Juno Beach Centre.

[Deleted]

The United States began to take note of certain matters, even though they wanted to remain out of the war.



More and more resistants were hanged in public as examples.



And then the war flared up elsewhere.



My stepfather was on one of these ships.



Meanwhile, back in Europe...



certificate of "non-Jewishness"



"Later, he tattled to his teacher to be well considered... because he was a JEW."



"Then he cheated at games to get more toys... because he was a JEW."



some images of Jewish life...



All the world is a stage.





Some of the possessions of a Jewish child before being murdered in a camp.



Gypsies were subjected to special physiological inspections.



Simultaneously, the Japanese were up to no good.







The United States increases its involvement in Europe.





The Germans inform the French of the number of people killed and homes destroyed by Anglo-American bombs.



a piece of statue from the ruins of Caen

[cynthia]

The much maligned Rick Steves rates that museum VERY highly. Thanks for the report. I have not been, but from the posted pictures notice some similarities to the also very highly rated Imperial War Museum in London.

[Deleted]

We also get to see what caused all of this destruction.



Battlefield chaos has always inspired certain artists.



an important point which used to be hidden from view



Some performers who continued to work in occupied France were considered to be traitors, others not.





"Making new from the old" was an important point in fashion magazines.





a comparison of the uniforms of the various armies







The liberation of France has begun...



...while the war in the Pacific continues.





Many German officials prefer suicide.

[bjd]

Thanks for this. I have never been there either and would have thought it was more a memorial to the Resistance. I'm glad to see that it's more complete, including some buildup to the war.

I think the fact that it looks like a bunker is very apt. There are still lots of examples of the German love of concrete along the west coast of France.

[Deleted]

After the German capitulation, it was time to start picking up the pieces.



Statistics like this are always amazing. We generally don't think of Yugoslavia as having a huge number of dead.



Finally the war ends for everybody.

[Deleted]

It is totally normal that there be a special section about the Battle of Normandy in this museum.



This is where I finally encountered the school groups.





some of the medical equipment







I wonder what kind of report the kids will have to make. They were taking so many notes.







Welcome home.



The library of Caen did not fare any better.



Here is what the city looked like as the war ended.





Life goes on.

[bjd]

Gad! McDonald's as a symbol of the post-war world?

[mossie]

Bjd, that says it all.

Kerouac, you have taken me back to those days when this country was a much better place than it is now. I suppose that wartime period holds very strong memories for me as I was 7 when the war started.

[Deleted]

another corridor of transition to a completely different part of the building



This was a chamber devoted to the arrival of countless consumer products.



some of the iconic American brands



some of the iconic Russian brands



I found the design of this room rather confusing (wooden wheels?) but it covered the events of the postwar period leading to the collapse of the Eastern bloc.







A young president gave a speech about dangerous times.



Vietnamese children ran away from soldiers who were considered heroes just 20 years earlier.



complicated world



The next room was all about nuclear threats with the old films about self protection from a nuclear blast.



Press button to end the world.



And they're off!

[Deleted]

[htmb]

I like being able to visit museums like this one, and can become very involved when allowing myself time to view old film footage and newsreels. Though I'm pretty stoic most of the time, these films usually upset me very much.

[mich64]

I always find the uniforms of interest, very detailed and well made. We also have noted that men were smaller then, not just in weight but in their height. I also enjoy it when I have time to read the newspaper displays.

[lagatta]

Yes, both men and women were smaller then. Some of the really old uniforms, from centuries past, would fit boys now.

There is a lot of hand detailing on the officers' uniforms, but even the troops' uniforms seem well-made. I know you visited Ottawa, so I assume that you went to the War Museum there. We were laughing darkly at the fact that the Nazis had the best uniforms, in terms of tailoring (Hugo Boss).

Do you watch X Company? The attention to detail in both the uniforms and the civilian clothing is striking.

[mich64]

Indeed Lagatta, we have visited many museums in Europe and they all look so well made. I am embarrassed to admit that in all my visits to Ottawa, we have not visited the War Museum, but have said on many trips home that we missed it again. We have little time to spare when there as we are usually on a weekend visit to see my college girlfriend and now my sister and her family live there.

I do not watch X Company but have seen the commercials and have noticed the quality of the clothes worn and think we would enjoy the series.

[lagatta]

You can watch it on the CBC site, any time.

[Deleted]

Tensions evolve, as do the weapons.





Nuclear warheads are small but quite dissuasive.





Be prepared.







The Berlin Wall was a strong symbol that postwar generations felt was eternal.







I went through Checkpoint Charlie once, and it was a frightening experience.



Handbag containing spy camera. I remember that the woman in front of me was having her packages of coffee x-rayed.



West Berlin was like an island in the ocean.



Meanwhile the young Pioneers of East Germany sang about the glories of their way of life.

As mayor of his village, my grandfather received official envelopes almost every day with DDR stamps on them. He always threw them away unopened, but I would absolutely love to know what was in them. Invitations? Ideas for overthrowing the government? Requests for cultural exchange? At least my brother and I were able to save the stamps during the year we spent with our grandparents.

The wall only lasted 28 years.



I saw the flood of Trabants visiting the West with my own eyes. It was incredible.

[Deleted]

I was ready for a little break from global tension, so I went to look at the temporary photography exhibition of works by the Manaki brothers. They took pictures of just about everything at the beginning of the 20th century, quite like Albert Kahn did. Even though they considered themselves to be portraitists, they wandered all over the Ottoman Empire and the Balkans and took pictures of just about everything, so they left an incredible ethnological legacy. Thinking of wars again, I'm wondering how many other people did this sort of thing and had every trace of their work destroyed in one war or another.

plenty of portraits, of course



Some of them were a bit surprising for the time.



If you're wondering about the angle of a lot of my pictures, it's because the photos were under glass and it was hard to find an angle without major reflections.



That was captioned "a mother and her starving children."



There were a lot of military group portraits, too, in such a military region. This is just one of them.



This was a French soldier who had lost his legs in WW1. In about 1928 he proudly stood on his wooden pegs.



Time to step outdoors for a bit of fresh air, even though there was still frost on the shaded lawns.



Each country is in charge of its own garden. Clearly, the Canadians wanted to make sure that no regiment was forgotten.



The grounds around the Mémorial are huge.



This is another statue from the ruins of Caen.



This structure is actually the elevator shaft for the next part of the visit.



not going there yet -- too many school groups







The fountain and pool are probably very nice in the warm season when they are running.



room for expansion -- and some picnic tables

[bixaorellana]

Great comment about the architecture of the building, Bjd. When I lived in Spain as a child, the pillboxes on hillsides were very affecting, speaking as they did of the war that many of our neighbors referred to only obliquely.

You must have been completely absorbed and possibly quite moved, Kerouac, as not only do you have first-person accounts from your relatives of some of the events, but you were an American child during the cold war, then witnessed the demise of the USSR as a European.

[bixaorellana]

Sorry -- got a phone call after starting my comment above & did not realize when I posted that you'd added to this remarkable thread.

It must have been disconcerting to come out of the darkness of the rooms depicting the dark days of war into that lovely green terrain.

[Deleted]

The last thing to be seen was this.





I walked back through the gardens. It is interesting to note (and perfectly normal) that all of the schoolkids were forbidden from taking the elevator and had to take the stairs.



It turned out that there was no way to avoid all of the school groups.







The entrance was quite austere.



Of course the bunker was long and narrow.

Actually, the displays were quite similar to what is in the main museum, but of course all of these items are 100% German.









We tend to forget (at least I did) that Anne Frank was still alive after D-Day and was hoping that freedom would arrive in time. It didn't.

[Deleted]

Some of the corridors of the bunker were taken up with photos of coastal pillboxes seen 70 years later.



One thing that I didn't know before this visit is that some of the antipersonnel mines were made of glass.



The school groups were gone at last.



German medical kit



Other German things of one sort or another. I confess that I was finally reaching saturation.



Back on ground level, one of the most iconic vehicles of the 20th century



just about to leave...



I saw this same item at the United Nations headquarters in New York City.



And so here we are back at this thing.





The most interesting thing about it was a trilingual plaque denouncing the sculpture as a depiction of sexual assault.

I'll be back to the Mémorial de Caen one of these days since they do update the displays and even in the big section about WW2, there are always things that you just skim instead of studying them thoroughly. There are already so many films playing that it would probably take all day to stop and look at all of them. I did not mention that there is also a large auditorium which shows a 17-minute film of the D-Day events every half hour, and it is quite impressive.

And when will they be able to add a section about the "War on Terror"? It is still too soon since we are right in the middle of it and have absolutely no perspective yet. So I doubt that I will live to see that section.

[bixaorellana]

Ha! That is EXACTLY what I thought when I saw the statue.

[lagatta]

Yes, I already knew about the backstory. And indeed, all sides raped galore in that and other conflicts.

[tod2]

Totally fantastic report Kerouac. I know my husband would want to spend an entire day there.
There is so much to comment on but most have beaten me to it.
On the "Embracing Peace" statue - I find it creud compared to the one at St.Pancrass Station in London. For one thing, the poor woman is arched back far too much.