Do the French remember?

Hundreds of thousands of military personnel converged on the coast of Normandy on June 6, 1944, D-Day. My father was among them. The first difficult footprints in the sands of Normandy beaches had begun the path that led to V-E Day on May 8 in 1945.

The soul of the French people has forever been touched by the liberation events 60 years so recent. I experienced the depth of their profound appreciation and gratitude during an emotional encounter inside a French home, around the cherished family dinner table. Introducing me, the hostess mentioned to her parents that just a few days earlier I had visited Omaha Beach where my American father had served on D-Day.

Tears began flowing down the cheeks of Monsieur and Madame Michel Grudé. I was confused. Why these tears? After a moment Madame explained that her father left to fight the war when she was 6 months old. Six years later a man she'd never really known returned home, emaciated after years spent in a prisoner-of-war camp. Monsieur explained that despite his lifelong gratitude for the American liberators who made possible his life so drastically different from what would have been, never in the 60 years since D-Day had he had an opportunity to personally express his thanks to an American.

That evening their appreciation flowed from the well of their earliest childhood memories and focused on me. Though I had done nothing to earn or deserve their gratitude, as a son of one of their liberators I symbolized something profoundly significant in their lives. With tears in my eyes and with great pride for my father, my nation, the Allied effort, and for the friendship between the peoples of France and the United States, I humbly accepted their expressions of gratitude. Undiminished through the passage of 60 years, they revealed to me how profoundly the French people remember the sacrifices of so many Americans.

"France will never forget that 6th of June, 1944, the day that hope was reborn and rekindled. ... Each and every French family cherishes the memory of those moments of joy that followed the D-Day landings," French President Jacques Chirac said in the midst of a sea of American grave markers at the American Cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer on June 6, 2004. Commemorations have progressed across France town by town and region by region to mark anniversaries of 60 years of liberation. Feb. 2 marked the final liberation of French soil when the Colmar pocket of Alsace was finally freed. From there, American soldiers moved east into Germany and continued fighting, liberating death camps along the journey to V-E Day on May 8.

The final week of my journey was spent in eastern France, walking among battle sites and military cemeteries in the Vosges Mountains of Alsace and visiting relatives. I heard agonizing stories about war years. A cousin the age of my father was forced to serve in the Nazi army and fight against France. Another cousin narrowly escaped death when a bomb fell on the candy shop where moments before the storekeeper yelled at her to run to the bomb shelter; the store was flattened.

My grandparents, fearing that future wars would occur in their homeland, had departed in 1908 to start a new life in America and pursue the dream of raising a family distant from the anguish of war. Because Alsace was then under German occupation, my French grandparents arrived at Ellis Island as German citizens. They soon became proud U.S. citizens. What great irony that their two American-born sons, serving in the American military, played roles in the liberation of their home country.

My grandfather died in 1936, so he never knew that his sons were drawn into the anguish of war after all. But my grandmother knew. She knew those worries that haunt a mother who has offspring away at war. She also anguished for her relatives in France during long years of occupation and as the final liberating battles on French soil were fought so close to her home village in the Colmar pocket.

This year in Paris, across Europe, in England, in Moscow, and in the United States and Canada, 60th anniversary V-E Day ceremonies honored the culmination of allied efforts that have so shaped our world. Who could have predicted that nations battling so fiercely then would today be key allies deeply committed to values of freedom and peace? Let us never forget.

Mark Langenfeld is a professor at Southeast Missouri State University. He spent a month in 2004 studying French, visiting Normandy, and conversing with French citizens.