Article published in La Presse de la Manche – June 20, 2024
The desire to strengthen Franco-German friendship
TWELVE Franco-German students from the Fondation Adenauer, chaired by Anja Czymmeck, visited D-Day memorial sites.
Philippe Gosselin, Member of the French National Assembly, met these young people from various universities on Friday June 14 in Foucarville, in front of the stele reminding us that this was the site of a prison camp. Benoit Lenoël and Anne Broilliard published a book in 2017 about this camp built by American engineering, with the help of the prisoners themselves.
Soon a museum
The camp consisted of 74 barracks and 1,435 tents, three theatres (including a 400-seat cinema and ballroom), an open-air school pompously named “University”, three cisterns… and a 1,000-bed hospital. It housed up to 60,000 prisoners, including 218 generals and 4 admirals under the command of American Lieutenant-Colonel Warren J. Kennedy, a humanist camp leader. Philippe Gosselin recalled the importance of reconciliation between the two countries after their liberation from Nazism. “Peace is unfortunately no longer a matter of course”, he added, referring to Ukraine.
Jens Münster, German MP for Rhineland-Palatinate, one of Germany’s sixteen federal states, said: “Let’s consider Peace to move Europe forward”. In Foucarville, where the prison camp was located, a museum is due to open soon.
MR B.
