Month: May 2021

Memorial Day Amongst The Graves of Normandy and God’s Town of the Frying Pans

~ travelsandtomes ~ 9 Comments

PART ONE

You will ask yourself what the D-Day beaches, the allied graves in Normandy, and divinely sanctioned frying pays have to do with one another. It’s not a glib pairing. It’s the stuff of Normandy– and a reminder this Memorial Day, not only of the great sacrifices that have been made by the few for the many, but that the most harrowing of military struggles take place in someone’s backyard, on someone’s city streets, where craftspeople, chefs, and families gather amongst the pots and pans of life.

It’s easy for Memorial Day to be about abstract ideals and abstract heroism when you’ve never had war on your doorstep, or never lost a friend or family member in war.

One Memorial Day, 2008 I believe, we caught the ferry from England to France and lingered for a week in Normandy. As a military family in the early 2000’s, we knew the sting of loss in our communities, yet we knew the loss in our community paled compared to the numbers lost in World War II. It was impossible to live a short jump from the beaches of Normandy and not feel drawn to the site of the largest amphibious invasion in history . . . and the resting place of thousands of American and Allied soldiers lost during that invasion.

So we set out to discover Normandy, visit the American Cemetery there, and also enjoy some sorties to Mont St. Michel and to St. Malo (in Brittany).

And the frying pans? We made camp for the week in the charming town of Villedieu-les-Poêles: literally, “God’s town of the frying pans.”

I offer, here, short notes on what we saw that week, including the American Cemetery, its thousands of graves forever resting, forever watching, above the sands of Omaha Beach.

Villedieu-les-Poêles

We booked a large family room at a hotel in town. The room had ample space and a small loft area– exactly what you need when you are on the road with young children for the week and gale force storms have been forecast. Room to move and play should you have to sit inside– that’s imperative if you aim to keep your sanity.

Villedieu is a beautiful, ancient village, anchored by a market square and the Church of Notre-Dame by the Place de la Republique.

A nifty portrayal of the Place de Republique back in the middle ages. Notice that the Church of Notre Dame anchored the town center then, just as it does today (pictured below).

Here in “God’s City of the Pans,” a long tradition of metal smithing has flourished over the centuries. The town is famous for a foundry that makes bells that ring in the cathedrals throughout France. It’s even more famous for . . . you guessed it– frying pans and cookware. The much lauded Mauviel factory, world famous for copper cookware, is here. The factory is still family owned and surprisingly small. The pans are produced to a high standard, as they have been since 1830. Today the work is largely automated, but hand finishing and close inspection ensures quality. These pans don’t come cheap, but a visit to Mauviel and Villedieu will put the price tag in perspective. You pay for quality, for careful craftsmanship, and for tradition.

About that tradition: Villedieu has been a center of copper and metal work since the Middle Ages. The association runs so deep that the residents of Villedieu have long been called “les sourdins” (“the deaf”). Lifetimes of hammering away to shape metal did produce a population that was singularly hard of hearing.

You foodies may want to read David Lebovitz’s article on the Mauviel factory, here. Yes, Lebovitz–the chef turned author, and over-the-top Francophile–has made a pilgrimage to Villedieu and made off with a passel of pans. If you ever get the chance, I suggest you do the same.

The bells, the artisan shops, the church– tradition endures in Villedieu-les-Poeles.

Now to transition from Villedieu to the Second World War and remembrance: with a silent film reel from the Allied troops taking the town in 1944.

Normandy’s American Cemetery

The gale force storms that had been promised for our vacation week picked a disappointing, but somehow entirely appropriate day to arrive. They struck with full force on the day we drove to overlook Omaha Beach and visit the American Cemetery. There were few other cars in the parking lot, and, as best I could see, only two other people making their way from their car down to the cemetery– a very elderly gentleman on a walker with what looked to be a family member. I assume he was a returning soldier, and I can’t tell you how it touched me to watch him slowly make his way from his car, fighting against wind and rain. He had known worse in his life.

I’m ashamed to admit this next bit. If I could fib about it without feeling I’d doubly disrespected those fallen souls who rest by the beaches of Normandy, then I’d do it. But they would know. So . . .truth time. My daughter and I chose not to leave the car. The weather was wicked beyond belief. Still. . . I regret that.

My husband and son (then three or four years old), made a mad dash out to the gravesites to pay respects. Perhaps I should have kept my son back in the car: when my husband explained the cemetery and headstones before them, my son did his best to show his understanding by clutching his chest and falling to the ground. It was earnest four-year-old parlance for the tragedy. Still, it was not ideal. My husband scooped him up quickly and they made their way back to the car.

Our reverence was real, but the day had not gone to plan.

We headed for the hotel, so the boys could put on dry clothes and we could sit out the storm– there was nothing else to be done for it. But we talked about the place, the sacrifice, and the absolute necessity of it in turning the tables on Hitler and the Third Reich. We weren’t sure how well the history resonated with our young children– or whether we wanted it too, as gory and disheartening as it was.

Back at the hotel, when the children climbed to the loft to play Legos as the storm raged outside, we were heartened when a lone Lego figure was catapulted from the loft amid cheering and jeering, and we heard “Take that Mr. Hitler. Don’t come back!” as the tiny terror bounced his way down the stairs.

It was a small, good thing in a day that had gone sideways. We remembered, in our own way.

I’ll leave you with a moment of respect at the graves of Normandy– a video of “Taps” at the site– as well as a poignant wartime poem. In a few days, I’ll return with some notes on the second part of our trip, to Mont St. Michel and St. Malo.

John McCrae’s poem was written after WWI, but it rings true as a remembrance for fallen soldiers of any era.

When Life Looks Grimm

~ travelsandtomes ~ 10 Comments

Outlook is everything. Better to be an optimist than a pessimist. This I won’t deny . . . however. . . I will say that life is complicated, and it’s better to understand finesse and grey areas than to see the world in stark terms of happy/sad, good/bad, obstacle/opportunity. To be sure, the “glass half empty or glass half full” test paints a certain picture, but as many people before me have noted, it’s far better to realize that the glass is in flux and ever able to be refilled. Ebb and flow, people. Is it even possible to live a balanced life without a sense that there will be ebb and there will be flow?

The Brothers Grimm

This is a roundabout way of coming to the topic of The Brothers Grimm, who occupied my thoughts last week on two fronts. First, I’ve been developing a few lessons on Fairy Tales– those richly complicated stories that seem to have have a Jekyll and Hyde personality in modern imagination. Are they adorable children’s tales where everyone lives happily ever after, or are they dark musings on our dreams and fears that sometimes delve deep into violence? Do they encourage good children to uphold social mores, or do they foment revolutionary plottings?

In a word: Yes.

The second reason the Grimm brothers showed up on the scene last week was new information to me. These literary brothers just celebrated the anniversary of their Deutsches Worterbuch. Their German Dictionary was a huge undertaking, and Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm sought to do more than just record the meanings of the most used German words. They set out to record “the origin and use of EVERY German word.” Deutsches Welle, the German media outlet, has an informative article on this undertaking (here) in its broad scope and political overtones. Definitely worth a read.

The Grimm Brothers’ German Dictionary

How did these famous storytellers come to write a dictionary? Well, first of all, it may help to remember that they were “story catchers”– scholars driven by a desire to preserve stories and the cultures they grew out of. Second, they found themselves at a pivot point, not unlike characters in the tales they collected. The Grimm brothers were professors (anthropologists and linguists), suddenly jobless after the University of Gottingen fired a cluster of educators who refused to swear an oath to the new king or back the alteration of the constitution in Hanover in 1837. They took up the challenge of creating the first German dictionary, largely, because they had bills to pay. Their thorough approach was remarkable and reflected their love of the language: “especially enamoured with the letter A, calling it the ‘noblest, most original of all sounds.’ Unsurprisingly, their famous dictionary begins with a detailed linguistic history of the vowel” (dw.com). The brothers were thorough and reverent . . .however, this approach also ensured that the project would not be completed in their lifetime.

As careful to preserve the diverse dialects of Germany as they had been to capture and preserve the folk tales of their land, they were also keenly aware that this project wielded a certain political muscle in unifying the German Reich linguistically. They would compile one linguistic platform to bring together the diverse German-speaking states. I like to think that they took to heart the role of the trickster in so many of the fairy tales they had gathered: having lost their jobs to a certain political vision, they found a way to incorporate that vision into their new work. They were wily and triumphant . . . in the long game.

It was an ambitious undertaking that outlasted both the Grimm brothers and many iterations of the modern German state– only seeing completion in 1961. Many decades, many unpronouncable German words, and 32 volumes later.

If you have read this blog over the years, you will know of my struggles with the German language. And you will know that I am in the good company of Mark Twain on that front. Still, the Deutsches Worterbuch was a remarkable undertaking that has my utmost respect. Many a day, the project must have felt like a hungry wolf at Jacob and Wilhelm’s backs. But that, my friends, is a little red story for another day.