Some 170 miles southwest of the celebrated landing beaches in Normandy, the remains of a D-Day site few visit peek out from behind trees in rural Brittany, reports The New York Times.
Overgrown with moss and ivy, the stone farm buildings were the former headquarters of the Saint-Marcel Maquis — thousands of local French resistance fighters who had gathered in response to coded Allied calls over BBC radio to prepare for an invasion. Among them were French army commandos parachuted in to block the Nazis from sending reinforcements to the beaches.
But before the operation could be put into full swing, the camp was discovered by the Nazis and destroyed. Dozens of fighters were hunted down and killed. In retribution, most buildings in the surrounding area were burned and hundreds of locals were executed.
It’s a wound of tragic heroism that few in France know about, let alone commemorate.
President Emmanuel Macron of France aimed to change that when he presided over a ceremony on Wednesday in Plumelec, the nearby village where French commandos landed early in the morning of D-Day as the first Allied planes and gliders were arriving in Normandy. One of the members of that elite French unit, Émile Bouétard, was shot dead by soldiers with the German army. He is considered among the first Allied casualties of D-Day.
“The bravery and determination of these united fighters played a major role in the liberation of our country,” Mr. Macron said before the crowd gathered, braving intermittent rain spells typical of the region. “Their heroic actions leave an indelible mark on our history.”
The president’s visit — and accompanying history lesson — was the latest in a year of events planned to celebrate the country’s release from the Nazis’ grip 80 years ago. Unlike many of his predecessors, Mr. Macron has chosen to memorialize not only the valiant and brave, but also the shameful and forgotten — including a site where French resistance fighters were killed by French militia members who were working with the Nazi regime.
Some critics have derided the events as “memory inflation,” but others note that they come at a time when the country should be contemplating its past ghosts. The head of an advisory board of historians, Denis Peschanski, says the events are aimed at achieving “historical equilibrium.”
For many in this pocket of Brittany, the presidential homage came as a long-awaited recognition. The last French leader to visit the area for a ceremony was Gen. Charles de Gaulle in 1947 — and he was not president at the time.
“It’s a good thing,” said Marcel Bergamasco, the last Saint-Marcel fighter alive and able to recount his experience. He is 99. “It’s a recognition that what happened in Saint-Marcel mattered.”