Post card featuring the “Welcome our Liberators” phrase.
World War II began on September 1,1939; about a year later one of the major global powers, France, fell to the powerful German forces. In almost every history class I have taken, my teacher has found a way to make the French the punch line of a joke because of France’s fall in 1940. Four years passed before Allied forces finally liberated the French. Between its fall in 1940 and its liberation in 1944 there has been a debate about whether there was predominate French collaboration with the Germans or predominate French resistance. The impression I have always been under is that for the most part, the French could be considered collaborators. The Germans seemed to be well on their way to taking over the entirety of Europe, and the French needed to figure out how they would fit into Germany’s new empire. Or so the story goes in the American narrative I grew up learning. The French narrative is a bit messier. This was extremely evident when comparing the town of Bayeux to the Caen Memorial Museum we visited.
On Saturday May 14 we made the transition from the fast-paced city of London to the quieter, slower-paced Bayeux. Bayeux is about forty minutes away from the beaches where the Normandy Invasion took place. Even though D-Day occurred on June 6, 1944, almost 71 years ago, the events of the invasion still seem to be fresh in the minds of the people of the surrounding area.
Bayeux itself is not very big. Therefore, it was very easy to walk around and get a good sense of the city. The more I explored the city, the more I began to notice the same phrase. It read, “Welcome to our Liberators.” I saw this phrase in the windows of several restaurants scattered throughout the city, on the doors to the Welcome Center of the British cemetery, and even on postcards at a souvenir shop. Obviously the liberators this phrase is referring to are the Americans, the British and the Canadians.
The phrase “Welcome to our Liberators” seems to contradict what I was presented with about the French national narrative of World War II that was present in the Caen Memorial Museum. There were several things I liked about this museum, the first being the overall setup. I liked that the pre-war exhibit made visitors feel like they were descending into hell gradually. The flooring changed, the walls went from smooth to rough, but the changes were subtle enough so you didn’t really notice the changes until you had descended quite a ways. To me, this helped the visitors get a visually accurate representation to how the war started. There were seemingly small, insignificant things happening that led to WWII rather than the abrupt beginning that many histories of the war still seem to have.
The plaque talking about French liberation.
However, what I found frustrating in the museum was that it celebrated the French resistance too much and seemed to downplay the role of the other Allies, especially in regards to D-Day. In the museum’s section on D-Day there was a phrase that stuck out to me in particular, it was on one of the plaques hanging on the wall. It read: “With or without the help of the Allied forces, most of France had been liberated by August and September 1944.” This phrase downplays the significance the Americans, British and Canadians had in the French liberation and gives much of the credit to the French resistance. While there was French resistance it was not so significant as the Caen museum would lead you to believe.
The juxtaposition between what I saw in the museum and what I saw around Bayeux leads me to believe that the French still are struggling with how they want to remember World War II. While on one hand its difficult for such a large global power to admit that it needed help
“Welcome to our Liberators” as seen in the window of a local restaurant.
liberating itself, it still needs to be acknowledged. This is why I feel like I saw so many “We welcome our Liberators” throughout Bayeux. The phrase was found in random places, almost seeming to blend in to the surroundings. This is the French way of saying that they know how big of a role others played in their liberation without having to completely admit it in their national narrative.