Dans un article paru sur le site anglophone France Revisited, Gary Kraut explique à ses compatriotes américains qui viendraient honorer les sacrifices et succès militaires des Alliés en Normandie l’intérêt qu’ils pourraient trouver à visiter le musée de Falaise, dédié aux victimes civiles de la guerre.
In Normandy, where dozens of museums tell about the D-Day Landing, the 75 days of the Battle of Normandy, the victory for the Allied forces against the German occupant and the Liberation, visitors to the region have, until recently, been offered scant information about the effects of war on civilian populations.
.
Yet, in addition to the deprivations, deportations and executions caused by the German occupant and in some cases by their French collaborators, Allied air strikes from 1942 to 1944 claimed 50-70,000 civilian victims in France. Of the 20,000 Normans who died as a direct result of the war, the majority were killed by Allied bombardments intended to weaken the Atlantic Wall, destroy enemy forces and prevent the possibility of German reinforcement during the Invasion of Normandy. Furthermore, about 150,000 Normans lost or had to leave their homes during the spring and summer of 1944.
Lire la suite de cet article paru en janvier 2017 sur FRANCE REVISITED.