Food for Thoughts
(as an example)
Nederlandse versie, Summary:
- Notice on the wall of the primary school at Villers-Bretonneux (Somme, France - Background music: " Waltzing Matilda")
- Marguerite Bervoets, Belgian resistance fighter
- Françoise Desmaré, 17 years of age, after her visit to the concentration camp Ravensbrück in 1999, accompanied by Belgian ladies former political prisoners there
- Fernand Strubbe, Belgian résistance fighter
- Danish hymn
- André Malraux, French resistance fighter, later Minister of Culture
- Maurice, French soldier 1914-18
- Memorial of the 1st World War in Le Bizot (Doubs), France
- Charles Péguy, French poet and officer
- Helen Thomas, wife of a British soldier
- John McCrae, famous autor of "In Flander Fields"
- Captain Noel Godfrey Chavasse, Royal Army Medical Corps
- Grave of the Bristih unknown soldier
- Speech of Mustapha Kemal Atatürk, about the Anzacs in Gallipoli
- Poem written by Wëllem Weiss, Chaplain of the prison in Luxemburg during the war
- Jeroen Brouwers, Dutch civilian interned in a Japanese concentration camp
- Nordhal Grieg, Nordahl Grieg, Norwegian author, dramatist and journalist
- Professor Torgny Segerstedt, editor-in-chief of a Swedish daily
- Celtic memorials
- Book of Revelations
- Proverb from Poland
 |
Notice
on the wall of the primary school
at Villers-Bretonneux (Somme), France :
|
This school building
is the gift of the school children of VICTORIA, Australia, to the children of VILLERS-BRETONNEUX as a proof of their love and good-will towards France. TWELVE HUNDRED Australian soldiers, the fathers and brothers of these children, gave their lives in the heroic recapture of this town from the invader on 24 th April, 1918, and are buried near this spot. May the memory of great sacrifices in a common cause keep France and Australia together forever in bonds of friend- ship and mutual esteem. |  |
Background
music: "Waltzing Matilda"
Source: http://www.navy.gov.au/ranband/audio.htm
Last
letter written by Marguerite Bervoets, Belgian resistance fighter,
before
being executed by decapitation on 7 August, 1944:
"I
have perished for testifying that one can love life madly
and simultaneously
agree to a necessary death… Tell her
(my mother) that I have fallen for the
Belgian skies shall
become purer, for those that follow me could live freely
as
I have wished it so much myself… It is for persons like you
that my
death is completely dedicated, for people who can
re-live and build-up again.
And I think about your children
who will be free tomorrow…".
The original text is available on the French version of this site.
Françoise
Desmaré, 17 years of age,
after her visit to the concentration camp Ravensbrück
in 1999, accompanied by Belgian ladies former political prisoners there.
Chrysalis
I shall never be the same any more.
A black and white film passes and passes again before my eyes.
Ravensbrück,
where life has ceased to exist, where the air has the taste of ashes; the ashes
of our grandmothers, mothers and children who disappeared by the thousands.
I shall never be the same any more.
With you, I went down into the abyss
of suffering. I went hand in hand with immeasurable horror and dishumanisation
and its atrocities; I saw the yellow faces, the dead souls.
No,
I shall never be the same any more.
You have given me back joy and hope in
the capable to sacrifice one's life for an idéal. You have transformed my life,
my well-being - my most precious gifts.
I owe my freedom to you.
To live.
The original text is available on the French version of this site.
With
the gracious permission of the Centre technique et
pédagogique de l'Enseignement de la Communauté française. Route de Bavay 70,
B-7080 Frameries.
Tel : +32-65-66 73 22. Fax +32-65-66 14 21.
E-mail
: ctp.frameries@restode.cfwb.be.
Fernand
Strubbe, Belgian Résistance fighter,
lieutenant of the Intelligence and Action
Services.
…Het waren
allemaal gewone mensen zoals die welke we elke dag ontmoeten.
Omstandigheden
hebben ze plots in de gelegenheid geplaatst iets bijzonders te
doen. Op dat
ogenblik moest elkeen het voor zichzelf uitmaken. Je moest dan
beslissen
of het voor je menens was met de waarden die je voorgehouden
werden en die
je je eigen gemaakt had.
…
Wanneer U bij een naam leest: "gefusilleerd"
of "onthoofd" of "gehangen" of "
omgekomen in een concentratiekamp", denk
daarbij ook eens aan de moeder,
de vader, de broers en zusters, de vrouw of
de man èn de kinderen. Van veel
aangehouden mensen werd nooit meer iets gehoord.
Van de een of de ander
hebben teruggekomen medegevangenen kunnen zeggen waar
ze hem of haar
op een bepaalde dag voor het laatst gezien hebben.
De
nabestaanden hebben hun leven lang elke dag gedacht aan dat geliefde
wezen,
zich afvragend wat zijn of haar lijden geweest is en wat met hem of haar
gebeurd is. De nabestaanden weten beter dan wie ook wat moreel lijden, hopen
en wanhopen betekenen Ze kunnen ook best het lijden van anderen begrijpen.
Want er gaapt een afgrond tussen mensen die lijden en mensen die nooit
geleden
hebben. Zoals er een onoverbrugbare afstand bestaat tussen wie zich
ooit
eens geëngageerd heeft en mensen die altijd aan de zijkant zijn blijven staan.
Belgian military graves at the cemetery of
Amiens (France)
..They
were all ordinary people like the ones we meet every day.
Circumstances gave
them suddenly the opportunity to realise something
out of the ordinary. On
that moment, every one had to make up his mind for
oneself. Then you had to
decide if it was serious according to the values that
were presented to you
and which you had made yours.
…
When you read, next to a name: "shot"
or "beheaded" or "hanged" or "died
in a concentration camp", think then of
the mother, the father, the brothers
and sisters, the wife or the husband,
the children. Many of the people arrested
were never seen any more. Some
companions who came back could mention
where they had seen the one or the
other for the last time.
Every day for the rest of their life, the next of
kin have thought about that dear
person, asking themselves what his or her
suffering had been and what had
happened to him or her. The next of kin are,
more than others, aware of meaning
of moral suffering, hope and despair.
They also know better what the other ones go through. Because there is a abyss
between those who suffer and those who have never suffered. Just as there
is
an unbriodgeable distance between those who have engaged themselves one
day and people who always remained on the side.
Extract from the book : "Geheime Oorlog 1940-1945 - De Inlichtings-
en
Actiediensten in België", pages 8 et 9, published by Uitgeverij Lannoo nv,
Tielt (Belgium) whom we thank for their kind permission to reproduce this text.
Hymn
sung by all the inmates of the prison when Danish |
Altid
freydig når du går
Veien Gud tør kende
selv om du til
målet når,
først ved verdens ende.
Aldrig
raed før mørkrets magt
stjernerne vil lyse.
med et fadervor
i pagt
skal du aldrig gyse.
Fanerne sænkes.
Kæmp
før allt, vad du har kær,
dø, om så det gælde,
da er livet
ej så svært,
døden ikke heller.
Always
serene when you tread
The road known by God,
Even if you only reach
the goal
At the end of the world.
Never frightened
by the dark powers
Of the night; the stars are shining.
With the Lord's
Prayer You will never recede.
Lowering of the flags.
Fight for everything you cherish,
Die if necessary,
Then life is not
so difficult
And neither is Death.
top
Extract
from the speech by André Malraux on the occasion of
the reception of the ashes
of Jean Moulin at the Panthéon in Paris.
 | …Enter
here, Jean Moulin, with your terrible procession. With those who died in the cellars without having talked, as you yourself; and even, which maybe is even worse, having talked; with all the striped and shaven inmates of the concentration camps, with the last stumbling body of the horrible lines of Night and Mist, finally tumbling down under the butts of the guns; with the 8.000 French women who never returned from the prisons, with the last woman fallen in Ravensbrück because she had sheltered one of ours. Enter, with the multitude born from the shadow and disappeared with it - our brethren in the order of the Night… |
The original text is available on the French version of this site.
Extract from the letter from a French soldier to his wife.
| The evening before yesterday, in the bleu ink of the night, I was walking on earth the Road of the Cross of Beyond. It was the ghastly scattering of the cemetery without cover, without crosses, abandoned by men, the disseminated layers of uncountable corpses, without burial, the naked charnel-house in the crawling of maggots and in the shell-holes, the shells falling down continuously. More than a thousand contorted corpses, hacked into pieces, catted the one on the other… I was trailing through the night towards the front-lines, with my burden of pieces on my back; I was nearly fainting away: that taste, that smell in my mouth, in my nostrils; the enemy and Frenchmen symparthysing in a last grin, in the embrace of violated nudities, intermingled, on that plain of haunted folly, in that abyss crossed by clamours and squalls. The German and the Frenchman rotting the one into the other, without having the slicest chance ever to be buried by fraternal or pious hands. To go and collect them results only in adding one's own corpse in that ever open pit, because war is insatiable… Every night, we walk along that petrified hell where the spectres are fluttering, our heart turned upside down, holding our nose, shriveling our lips. But the worse is that we eat after coming back, past midnight, the only meal in a whole day with the taste of coprses still in our mouth; we eat blindly in the darkness… Ah! It does not flow easily and the food is cold, congealed, not very tempting. Early in the morning, waking up with a start, there was the anguishing clearing for action, the alarm-bell, the alert… |
Your Maurice
From "Paroles de Poilus", by kind permission of Editions Tallandier in Paris (1998).
The original text is available in the French version of this site.
French soldiers in the ruins of Chauny, winter 1917. Real color picture, made
by an official French war photographer.
Source: http://www.greatwar.nl/
MEMORIAL OF THE 1ST FIRST WORLD WAR IN LE BIZOT (DOUBS, FRANCE)
""NARBIEF"
"Homage of recognition
of the commune which was saved"
One of the rare villages of France not to
have had victims during the First World War.
PRIERE
POUR NOUS AUTRES MORTELS
de Charles Péguy, tué d'une balle en plein front
en août 1914.
Heureux
ceux qui sont morts pour la terre charnelle,
Mais pourvu que ce fût dans
une juste guerre.
Heureux ceux qui sont morts pour quatre coins de terre.
Heureux ceux qui sont morts d'une mort solennelle.
Heureux ceux qui sont morts dans les grandes batailles,
Couchés dessus le
sol à la face de Dieu.
Heureux ceux qui sont morts sur un dernier haut lieu,
Parmi tout l'appareil des grandes funérailles.
Que Dieu mette avec eux dans le juste plateau
Ce qu'ils ont tant aimé, quelques
grammes de terre,
Un peu de cette vigne, un peu de ce coteau,
Un peu
de ce ravin sauvage et solitaire.
top
Helen
Thomas, on her husband's last night |
| "I
sit and stare stupidly at his luggage by the wall. He takes out his "Shall
I undress you by this lovely fire and carry you upstairs in my "I hide my
face on his knee, and all my tears so long kept back "So we lay, all night,
sometimes talking of our love and all that had |
Remembered with honour AGNY MILITARY CEMETERY - Commemorated in perpetuity by
the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.
Source: http://www.cwgc.org/cwgcinternet/certificate.aspx?cemetery=24503&mode=1&tab=7&page=2&casualty=249787
Edward
Thomas (1878-1917), officer near the regiment Artists' Riffles,
died in the
combat in Arras on April 9, 1917.
In 1956, his widow published her book "As
it was - world without end" (Faber & Faber).
This letter is on display in the showcase "British Recruitment"
in room 2
of the HISTORIAL DE LA GRANDE GUERRE in
Péronne,
Somme, France (by kind permission of the HISTORIAL).
More
informations in: http://www.edwardthomas.co.uk/
and
http://www.envoy.dircon.co.uk/etf/home.html
(Edward Thomas Fellowship)
In Flander
Fields,
written by John McCrae,
a Canadian doctor and teacher, who served in both the South African War and the
First World War.
 John McCrae | "In
Flanders Fields" was first published in England's "Punch" magazine in December,
1915. Within months, this poem came to symbolize the sacrifices of all who were
fighting in the First World War. Today, the poem continues to be a part of Remembrance
Day ceremonies in Canada and other countries. In part because of the poem's popularity, the poppy was adopted as the Flower of Remembrance for the war dead of Britain, France, the United States, Canada and other Commonwealth countries. |
 | In Flanders Fields In Flanders fields
the poppies blow We are the
Dead. Short days ago
Take up our quarrel with the foe: |
Essex Farm Cemetery today, this is the
place where McCrae wrote his poem.
Source: http://www.greatwar.nl
Account of
deed for the awarding of the Victoria Cross and Bar
to Captain Noel Godfrey
Chavasse, Royal Army Medical Corps:
 Chavasse Memorial at Brandhoek Church, near Ieper in West Flanders, Belgium 1998. |  |
On 9 August 1946, at Guillemont,
France, Captain Chavasse attended
to the wounded all day under heavy fire,
frequently in view of the enemy,
and during the night he continued searching
for wounded in front of the
enemy's lines. Next day, under heavy shell fire
he and a stretcher bearer
carried an urgent case 500 yards to safety, being
wounded himself during
the journey. The same night, with 20 volunteers, he
rescued three wounded
men from a shell-hole 36 yards from enemy trenches,
buried the bodies of
two officers and collected many identity discs. Altogether
he saved the lives
of some 20 wounded men.
BAR:
During the period 31 July to 2 August 1917, at Wieltje, Belgium,
Captain
Chavasse, although severely wounded early in the action while
carrying a
wounded officer to the dressing station, refuse to leave his post
and in
addition to his normal duties, went out repeatedly under heavy fire to
attend
the wounded. During this time, although practically without food, worn
with
fatigue and faint from his wound, he helped to carry in badly wounded
men,
being instrumental in saving many who would otherwise have died
under the
bad weather conditions.
Captain Chavasse subsequently died of his wounds.
Captain Chavasse, Royal
Army Medical Corps, VC & Bar,
is buried in Brandhoek New cemetery,
a
few kilometer from Ieper (Ypres), Belgium.
More informations in: http://www.liverpoolscottish.org.uk/chavmem1l.htm
About Victoria Cross: http://www.victoriacross.net/default.asp
The Tomb of the Unknown Warrior (Great Britain).
"Beneath this stone rests the body
Of a British Warrior
Unknown
by name or rank
Brought from France to lie among
The most illustrious
of the land
And buried here on Armisitice Day 11 Nov: 1920,
In the presence
of
His Majesty King George V
His Ministers of State
The
chiefs of his forces
And a vast concourse of the nation
Thus are commemorated
the many
Multitudes who during the Great
War of 1914 - 1918 gave the most
that
Man can give life itself
For God
For King and Country
For loved ones Home and Empire
For the sacred cause of justice and
The
freedom of the world
They buried him among the kings because he
had
done good toward God and toward his house"
More details on the website of the Veterans Agency: http://www.veteransagency.mod.uk
In 1934, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who led the fighting Turks at Gallipoli and became founder of the Turkish Republic in 1923, paid tribute to the Anzacs:
Lone Pine Memorial, Gallipoli, Turkey.
This is the main Australian memorial
at Gallipoli, which commemorates 4.000 soldiers from New Zealand and Australia,
fallen during Gallipoli operation.
Source: http://www.macknortshs.qld.edu.au/ANZAC/lone_pine_memorial.htm
 Mustapha Kemal Atatürk | "Those
heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives... You are now lying in the
soil of a friendly country. Therefore, rest in peace. There is no difference between
the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side, here in this country
of ours. You, the mothers, who sent their sons from far away countries... Wipe
away your tears. Your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After
having lost their lives on this land, they have become our sons as well."
|
Poem
written by Wëllem Weiss, Chaplain of the prison
in Luxemburg during the war,
to commemorate the execution
of 23 leaders of the Luxemburgish Résistance
fighters by the
Germans on 25 February, 1944, at the concentration camp
of Hinzert (Germany).
Em
d'Brake facht e steiwe Wand
Duurch Muerch a Schancke brécht de Frascht
De Preiss huet Numm fir Numm gennant,
A vrun him, Mann fir Mann, do stongen
Dräianzwanzeg Lëtzeburger Jongen.
Si
furen an der Dag, dee grot;
Si sëtze Knéi u Knéi gedrékt.
De Preiss
wor haart. Et gouf keng Gnod.
De Wand huet iwwer d'Brooch gesongen:
Dräianzwanzeg
Lëtzeburger Jongen.
D'Gewan
läit roueg op der Bor.
An d'Kuebe jäizen déif am Bösch.
Eng Stönnchen
nach. Dann ass et klor.
Dan ass buttrout hiirt Härz gesprongen:
Dräianzwanzeg
Lëtzeburger Jongen.
Vill
Rousen fierwe waarm de Schéi.
Op Héicht an Dällte gouf et heil
An d'Sonn,
eng feireg Wonnerbléi,
Liicht allen, déi durch d'Däischtert gongen:
Dräianzwanzeg Lëtzeburger Jongen.
"Wie
zijn ogen sluit voor het verleden,
is blind voor het huidige en de nog komende
tijd.
Door intolerantie en vooroordeel kan er
opeens weer worden vervolgd.
Omdat men een afwijkende huidskleur heeft,
omdat men linkshandig is,
omdat men kan lezen,
en zèlfs om een reden die U niet zal worden medegedeeld."
He
who shuts his eyes for the past is blind for the present and for the future.
Intolerance and prejudice can pave the way to sudden persecution.
Because
you have a different colour of skin. Because you are left-handed,
because
you can read. And even because of a reason nobody will tell you.
Jeroen Brouwers
(Dutch inmater
during his childhood in a Japanese civil internment camp)
top
Last
verse of the poem "The best ones" by Nordahl Grieg,
Norwegian author, dramatist
and journalist, written in September 1942.
De
öket det livet de gikk fra,
De spöker I nye menn.
Pa deres grav skal
skrives:
De beste blir alltid igjen.
They
enriched the life they left,
They who will be reborn.
On their grave
one will write:
The best ones always rise again.
| Nordahl
Grieg died on 2 December, 1943, With kind permission of Oliver Moystad, Foreign Rights Manager of the publisher Gyldendal Agency - Gyldendal Norsk Forlag, Oslo. |
De
fria fåglarna plöja sin väg genom rymden. Många av dem
nå kanske ej sitt fjärran
mål. Stor sak I det : de dör fria.
The
free birds plough their way through space. Many might
never reach their goal.
Is that so important: they die free.
Professor
Torgny Segerstedt, chief-editor of the Swedish daily
"Göteborgs Handels- och
Sjöfartstidning" during WWII.
51th
Scottish Division Memorial,
Beaumont Hamel (Somme), France.
Là A'BHLAIR 'S MATH NA CàIRDEAN
In battle, it is good to have friends ......
Beaumont Hamel (Somme-France)
Newfoundland Park.
51st Highland Division
Memorial.
Iona War Memorial, Scotland.
BITHIDH AN AINM BUAN CU SUTHAIN SIOR
In
memory of those young loved
lamented here
who died in their country's
service
Book of Revelations, 21, 4.
The Lord will be with them; He will wipe every tear from their eyes and death shall not exist any more.
Proverb from Poland
ZA WASZA I NASZA WOLNOC - For your freedom and ours.
Wellshill Cemetery, Perth, Scotland.
On this WW2 memorial, it is written in English and in Polish, the inscription
referred to above.
Source: http://website.lineone.net/~johnaferguson/pcity.html
(Thank you in John A. Ferguson for its collaboration).
| In English: Eternal Glory |
In Polish: Chwała Rodacy |
Website
of