Paris celebrates anniversary of Nazi liberation
Paris turned back the clock today for a grand fete to remember the tears, the joy and the euphoria that heralded the liberation of the French capital 60 years ago as it threw off the shackles of Nazi occupation.
The ceremonies drew thousands of people into the streets and began with six firefighters hoisting the French tricolour up the Eiffel Tower in an emotional re-enactment of the raising of the national flag exactly six decades ago.
Recreating the moment was intended to honour the six firefighters who carried out the dramatic gesture on liberation day, August 25, 1944, officials said.
When the Nazis first marched into town four years earlier, they ordered the French flag removed from the Eiffel Tower. The man who took it down was Captain Lucien Sarniguet – and he vowed to raise it again one day.
“He swore that he would be the one to put it back up. He kept his word,” said Sarniguet’s daughter, Jeanne-Marie Badoche, 77, who attended the ceremony with her family. “For four long years, he waited for that day.”
Pierre Noel, one of only two surviving firefighters out of the original six, attended the ceremony, proudly displaying a chest full of medals. He received the City of Paris’s highest honour – the Grand Vermeil Medal – from Mayor Bertrand Delanoe.
Paris was also honouring its liberators – resistance fighters who took their clandestine battle to the streets and French and American soldiers whose military might assured victory.
The main ceremony of the multi-faceted commemoration was at City Hall, with President Jacques Chirac paying tribute to veterans and Resistance fighters before 6,000 guests.
With the liberation, “Paris again became a city of light,” said noted director Jerome Savary, who enlisted 1,000 Parisians for celebrations that crisscrossed the city and ending with a swing and bebop ball at the Place de la Bastille. Parisians were asked to don 1940s garb.
Jubilant scenes from the liberation, with actors in period clothes, portrayed French and American columns of soldiers rolling into town. Actors dressed like Gis were covered in red-lipstick kisses. A 10-piece band played jazz and swing music from the 1940s.
“It’s not our generation, but it’s important to see this,” said Charlotte Colle, 16, who stopped to watch the American column.
Solemnity was also in order. More than 1,400 Parisians – including 582 civilians – were killed in street battles, according to the Jean Moulin Museum. Some 3,200 Nazis were killed.
At the Place de la Concorde, Chirac paid special tribute to General Philippe Leclerc’s 2nd Armoured Division, greeting some 600 soldiers – including 100 veterans – who, starting Tuesday, retraced the soldiers’ journey into the capital.
The arrival of the French division and the 4th American Infantry Division set off an explosion of joy that itself has become a historic event.
“The liberation of Paris was one of the most extreme cases of mass joy you could ever find,” said British historian David Wingeate Pike of the American University of Paris.
Paris’s tribute to its liberation was the last in a series of 60th anniversary commemorations by France marking critical moments leading to the capitulation of Germany and the end of the war.
