"Au réveil, si douce la lumière, et si beau ce bleu vivant"
(Paul Valéry)

mercredi 12 novembre 2008

Devoir de mémoire /Duty of memory

Hier, c'était le 11 Novembre.
Ce jour-là, nous nous souvenons de tous les soldats qui sont morts lors de la Première Guerre Mondiale.
Nous nous souvenons aussi de ceux qui sont tombés lors d'autres combats, et de ceux qui sont tombés alors qu'ils n'étaient pas soldats.
Chaque ville ou village de France a son monument aux Morts.
Nice a le plus grand monument aux Morts de France, creusé dans une colline au-dessus du port .
Mais plus modestement, chaque quartier a aussi son monument.
Car dans une grande ville comme la notre, chaque quartier a payé son tribut, chaque famille connait au moins un nom sur ces monuments.
Voici celui du quartier où j'ai grandi.
Situé à côté d'une toute petite gare , à proximité de notre vie quotidienne, il nous a permis, comme dit le poète, de "grandir à l'ombre des grands hommes", sans jamais les oublier...




Yesterday was November, the 11th.
It's the day when we think about all the soldiers who died during the First World War.
It's the day when we also think about those who died in other fights, and about those who died during wars without being soldiers.
In France, each small village, each town , has what we call a "Monument to the dead Ones".
Nice has the biggest of those french monuments.
But in each district of the big towns, there are also monuments.
Because in the big towns like mine, each part of the town had heavy losts, and each family knows at least one name written on those memorials.
Here is the monument of the district where I grew up.
It is near a small train station, among the every day life of the people.
This memorial allowed us to grow up , as the poet said, in "the shadow of the tall men", without forgeting them..

2 commentaires:

PERBS a dit…

We have a wall like that with names of people who died serving America in different wars. On Memorial Day, we have a big celebration there and the latest deaths are honored by families of the dead puting flowers and flags at the memorial as their names are called. There is patriotic music and speeches.

dot a dit…

Nice post and I'm so glad those people are not forgotten.