While we were in Normandy, we visited 3 cemeteries: Bayeux Commonwealth Military Cemetery, La Cambe German Military Cemetery, and the Normandy American Military Cemetery. All three had different ways of remembering the soldiers lost during World War II. However, all three, while different, were moving in their own way.
The first cemetery we visited was the Bayeux Commonwealth Military Cemetery. This is the final resting place for 4000 soldiers. The cemetery felt very warm and inviting. The first time I went was before the group went in the evening and it was a very serene experience. Each gravestone has flowers planted by them which adds color and gives the graves a sense of personality. Besides having flowers, something the British do is allow the families of the fallen soldiers to put a saying on the grave as well. I thought some of these were very powerful and really gave each soldier more humanity. They were more than just a gravestone and a name. They had families; they were sons, brothers, and fathers.
La Cambe German Military Cemetery was a much different experience. The gravestones were laid in rows like the others, but different from the other cemeteries, each grave was the final resting place of two German soldiers. The gravestones were not white and pristine; they were dark, at ground level, and I noticed many of them had cracks in them. La Cambe has to deal with a difficult moral question, how to make a final resting place for German soldiers without commemorating or putting what they fought for in a good light. As I walked through, I believed that this cemetery did a good job of that. I got a very weird feeling as I walked through and looked at many stones. They were human, and I think that was what the cemetery wanted to show. 16- and 17-year-olds buried there, which put into perspective the humanity of war. Showing that they all were humans was the best way to memorialize the Germans who are buried there. While it is important to know that the causes that they fought for were wrong, it is important to realize that these were people, boys, younger than me. In the end, this is more a memorial to humans who died, rather than a memorial saying what they died for.
Finally, we visited the Normandy American Military Cemetery. First walking through, I noticed that it was much cleaner cut. The crosses were all in rows, both vertically, horizontally, and diagonally. The grass was cut at a certain precise length, and the walkways were all perfectly edged. The cemetery had a very grand feeling to it. It was honoring the soldiers, but it also told a story of triumph through sacrifice. It truly felt like a victor’s cemetery, that we won the war so the soldiers who gave their lives are going to be honored as triumphant heroes. It was a contrast from the German cemetery as the Germans lost the war and there is the difficult question of the motives of the Nazi regime. While I thought both the Americans and British did a good job memorializing their fallen in Normandy, I think that the American cemetery had a more triumphant and victorious feel while the British had a more humanizing tone. Both were solemn, but the way they achieved it was different. I truly was moved visiting the cemeteries in Normandy.
