The birth of the project
2017: publication of the book “Prisonniers allemands en Normandie, un camp américain à Foucarville”, ed OREP, co-authored by Anne Broilliard and Benoit Lenoêl. A friendship develops between Alice Kennedy-Hall, daughter of the camp commander, and Anne Broilliard, on both sides of the Atlantic….
From 2017 to 2021, Cel Kennedy’s daughter is gradually transferring her father’s archives to the Cotentin region. In Foucarville, at the dedication of the first book on the history of the CCPWE19, she sends a message to the younger generations in the spirit of reconciliation that inspired her father. In 2021, the Warren J. Kennedy Foundation (hosted by the Fondation Mérimée, which is recognized as a public utility) was created to make good use of this documentary collection. In this way, the Foundation will safeguard all archive donations concerning the museum.
As Colonel W. J. Kennedy put it when he laid the foundation stone for the Prisoners’ Cathedral in June 1945, “.
“It was the first time in my military career I ever had a chance to build something instead of to destroy”
Cel Warren J. Kennedy
Camp Commander
The CCPWE19 was the site of an unprecedented experiment in “reorienting” Hitler’s soldiers through culture and learning.
It was also the scene of some wonderful stories of friendship and solidarity between the captives and their guards.
This very rich collection, “at human level”, reserves a very important part for the prisoners themselves, and has inspired a team of enthusiasts to launch an unprecedented project: the creation of a museum adjacent to the camp site.
- To help people understand and feel how captivity was a transformative experience, helping to bring Europe out of the war and build a lasting peace, we bring together American, German, French and neutral viewpoints,
- To resurrect this vanished world for visitors who may be the children and grandchildren of those who fought in Normandy.
Warren J. Kennedy Collection
Helping us...
If we are to succeed in faithfully writing this still little-known page of European history, we need to complete the collections. We are therefore appealing for your support to help us :
Expand the circle of living witnesses and their direct descendants, ready to testify in writing or orally
Find documents, archives, diaries entries and objects relating to the CCPWE19 camp, depot no. 14 in Douai, depot no. 152 in Saint-Aubagne, the Sosnowiec camp in Poland and the British camp,
Collect any information that would contribute to a better understanding of this subject.
Three generations after the end of the war, when the last witnesses of this period can still pass on the baton, and Europe is once again experiencing war, our project aims to seize a historical moment to explore the captivity of military prisoners in Normandy, and to insert it into a transnational history.
A PROJECT OF INTERNATIONAL SCOPE
Our project is supported by public bodies, major patrons and several French institutions such as
the Service Historique de la Défense (SHD), theÉtablissement de Communication et de Production Audiovisuelle de la Défense (ECPAD) and the Archives départementales du Nord, as well as international archives such as the Bundesarchiv, the Deutches Tagebucharchiv (DTA), and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), not forgetting our very active “Cercle des témoins et descendants directs” (German, American and Norman).
Our project is selfless. It will be carried out exclusively by the non-profitWarren J. Kennedy Association.
INFORMATION,
A TESTIMONIAL,
QUESTIONS ABOUT THE PROJECT?
