Wilting War Memorials

It’s interesting to think how sightseeing thrills go cold with time. I was just at Luzern’s much-vaunted Swiss Transport Museum. A huge photo-realistic map of Switzerland showing literally every building in the country (which slipper-wearing visitors would walk on as they explored their country) is now (after Google Earth) quaint and underwhelming. We went in with the camera ready to roll…and left having dropped it from the script.

The stamp museum I just saw in Liechtenstein, while as good as a stamp museum can be, was just so 20th century. “Sound and Light Shows” were theafter-dark extravaganza throughout Europe a generation ago. Today, they are essentially extinct.

And as time passes, the immediacy of war memorials wilts, too. As everyone’s “Greatest Generation” passes, the pain of WWII will fade. I know many refuse to accept this…but the pain of WWI faded just like the pain of the Franco-Prussian war and the pain of Napoleon’s Russia campaign faded. Pretty soon those photos of our heroic loved ones will join the others in the three-for-a-dollar box at the flea market.

The city the Nazis burned and murdered in 1944 four days after D-Day — Oradour-sur-Glane — has been intentionally left as it was by the Nazis. With my last visit, it occurred to me that it is intentionally left “as is,” and that is evocative and good…except for the fact that the elements are literally wearing it away. As rust and rot gnaws at France’s Martyr-ville, time does the same to our WWII memories.

Six hundred years has failed to put a stop to the night watchman in Lausanne. Every night since the 1400s, on the hour, a night watchman steps out on the top of the church spire and hollers in four directions, “I am the watchman. I am the watchman. We just had ten o’clock. We just had ten o’clock.” He’s a human cuckoo clock in the land of Rolex and Swatch. He’s so irrelevant — he actually repeated his shout at 10:16 so we could film him a second time from street level…and no one noticed.

Comments

7 Replies to “Wilting War Memorials”

  1. When Oradour-sur-Glane, France, was attacked by the German Army, everyone, except for six people, were killed. Women and children were herded into the church, which was then set afire. The old town remains with streetcar tracks still in the street, with rusted skeletons of automobiles, bicycles, sewing machines, and other objects, where they were on that tragic day. At the entrance to the old town there is a sign with only the words, “SOUVIENS-TOI, REMEMBER.” We’ve spent nights, in two different years, in the town campground.

    The nightwatchman in Lausanne has appeared very night since the 1400s, but near York, England, at Ripon, for 1,100 years (600 years before Columbus’ boatride), without missing one night, at 9:00 PM a man blows a horn to tell the town-folks, all is OK. The Wakeman was dressed in a three cornered hat, brown overcoat with brass buttons. There is a statue in the square, he goes to each corner and blows one note. He must go to the Mayor’s home and blow it again.

  2. There seems to be a romaticism with medival wars and battles. The horror of battle fades while the fairytale perception of knights and castles remain. Modern warfare is cold. Visited the small WWI memorials of the Sommes, France, and in the town, Hartlepool, England where the German ships first fired on unsuspecting civilians bringing the UK into the battle. Forgotten cold structures that have lost their personal meaning. Structural memorials wilt with time, but the myths and ghosts stay alive. They move on to become the memorial.

  3. Having grown up in New York with many Holocaust survivors, I’m saddened by how quickly things are forgotten. As people here in the US seem to be seriously contemplating rounding up and deporting 12 million “illegal” people – how? where would they go? what about their “legal” children? – I wonder if we humans will ever learn anything from history. I remember how proud I was to memorize Emma Lazarus’ poem in 4th grade. Aren’t we lucky our folks got in through the golden door before it closed. My dad talked about a group of Germans he captured in the French countryside. He said one young man, begging in fear he’d be shot, kept saying “familia”-I have a family. If only we could remember that.

  4. Certain war memorials are still incredibly moving throughout Europe. The American cemetery in Normandy sticks out as particularly moving by the rows and rows of crosses with names and hometowns — putting a human face on otherwise statistics of number of casualties. Other places in Europe that stick out are the Somme memorial, the Gallipoli peninsula in Turkey and the Culloden battlefield in Scotland. These monuments, while admittedly weathering with time, drive home the tragic history of much of Europe.

  5. I think if we make it a point to keep teaching our children about these wars and the devastation they caused the pain may not fade as much (nor as quickly). I’m only 21 and when I learned about these points in history I was shocked. Sometimes things even made me cry. Granted, I may be a little unusual for that, but I still think it will make a difference when we try to teach our children about how the world was, how it is, how it can be, and, hopefully, how it can change.

  6. Oradur-sur-Glane is one of the most moving memorials we’ve seen; I agree w/ the poster about Culloden. The Anne Frank House, Coventry Cathedral, the WW I & WWII cemetaries of all nations in France are also stark reminders of man’s inhumanity to man.

  7. We just returned from a wonderful week in Lausanne, fabulous public parks, interesting city-wide public art exhibit: Lausanne Jardins, beautiful views of the lake and old town… The only disappointment was that when we went to hear the town crier cry out 10pm at the Cathedral, we (and a handful of other curious tourists from different countries) only heard each other’s comments ” is this the right tower?” ” do you think he still does it?” etc… no appearance of the crier himself. Does anyone know if he still does it? If it’s been going on for 600 years, it seems unlikely we just happened to be there the night he was sick or overslept or something! Anyone know about this? Thanks.

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