French President Francois
Hollande, left, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel pay their respects
after laying a wreath at a German cemetery in Consenvoye, northeastern
France, Sunday May 29, 2016, during a remembrance ceremony to mark the
centenary of the battle of Verdun. Hollande and Merkel are marking 100
years since the 10-month Battle of Verdun, which killed 163,000 French
and 143,000 German soldiers and wounded hundreds of thousands. (Jean
Christophe Verhaegen/Pool Photo via AP)
VERDUN, France— In solemn ceremonies Sunday in the forests
of eastern France, French President Francois Hollande and German
Chancellor Angela Merkel marked 100 years since the Battle of Verdun,
determined to show that, despite the bloodbath of World War I, their
countries’ improbable friendship is now a source of hope for today’s
fractured Europe.
The 10-month battle at Verdun — the longest in World War I — killed
163,000 French and 143,000 German soldiers and wounded hundreds of
thousands of others.
This
undated file photo taken during the First World War shows French
soldiers resting inside the Fort de Vaux, one of the second fortress to
fall in the Battle of Verdun, eastern France. (AP Photo, File)
Between February and December 1916, an estimated 60 million shells
were fired in the battle. One out of four didn’t explode. The front line
villages destroyed in the fighting were never rebuilt. The battlefield
zone still holds millions of unexploded shells, making the area so
dangerous that housing and farming are still forbidden.
With no survivors left to remember, Sunday’s commemorations were
focused on educating youth about the horrors and consequences of the
war.
The main ceremony took place at a mass grave where, in 1984,
then-French President Francois Mitterrand took then-German Chancellor
Helmut Kohl’s hand in a breakthrough moment of friendship and trust by
longtime enemy nations.
In
this Sep. 22, 1984 file photo, late French President Francois
Mitterrand, left, and German Chancellor Helmut Kohl stand hand in hand
as they listen to the national anthems during a French-German
reconciliation ceremony outside the Douaumont cemetery near Verdun,
eastern France. (AP Photo/Pool/File)
“This gesture said more than any words,” Merkel stressed in her
speech at the Douaumont Ossuary, a memorial to 130,000 unidentified
French and German soldiers.
She said the dead of Verdun were “victims of bigotry and nationalism,
of blindness and political failure” and the best way to commemorate
them is to bear in mind “the lessons that Europe drew from the
catastrophes of the 20th century — the ability and willingness to
recognize how necessary it is not to seal ourselves off but to be open
to each other.”
Merkel added that “the common challenges of the 21st century can only be dealt with together.”
French
President Francois Hollande, left, holds an umbrella as he walks beside
German Chancellor Angela Merkel at a German cemetery in Consenvoye,
northeastern France, Sunday May 29, 2016, during a remembrance ceremony
to mark the centenary of the battle of Verdun. (Jean Christophe
Verhaegen/Pool Photo via AP)
Hollande has called for the “protection of our common house, Europe.”
He warned that the “time needed to destroy it would be much shorter
than the long time it took to build it.”
Amid rising support for far right parties and divisions among
European countries over how to handle refugees, he said Europe’s role is
“to fight against terrorism, fanaticism, radicalization” and at the
same time to “welcome populations who are fleeing massacres.”
About 4,000 French and German children re-enacted battlefield scenes
to the sound of drums amid thousands of white crosses marking the graves
—falling on the ground in a moving evocation of death, and getting back
up as a symbol of hope, in a ceremony conceived by German filmmaker
Volker Schloendorff.
Hollande and Merkel rekindled the flame of remembrance and gave each other a hug inside the Douaumont Ossuary.
They spent the entire day together. In the morning, he welcomed his
German counterpart under heavy rain at the German cemetery of
Consenvoye, near Verdun, where 11,148 German soldiers are buried. They
laid a wreath, accompanied by four German and French children, and
walked side by side for few minutes in the cemetery, sharing an
umbrella.
French
President Francois Hollande, left, holds an umbrella as he walks beside
German Chancellor Angela Merkel at a German cemetery in Consenvoye,
northeastern France, Sunday May 29, 2016, during a remembrance ceremony
to mark the centenary of the battle of Verdun. (Jean Christophe
Verhaegen/Pool Photo via AP)
After lunch, they were visiting the newly renovated Verdun Memorial.
The museum, which reopened in February, immerses visitors in the “hell
of Verdun” through soldiers’ belongings, documents and photos, and from
its new rooftop, they can observe the battlefield.
“The visit follows the steps of the soldiers. First reaching the
front, moving into shell holes, fighting, surviving on the front line,
the daily life,” said historian Antoine Prost.
The Eternal Flame at the Douaumont’s Ossuary, in Douaumont, northeastern France. (Mathieu Cugnot/Pool Photo via AP)
Verdun has become a common place of remembrance because “it’s a place
of massive death equivalent for the French and the Germans,” Prost
added.
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