On a recent trip to France, I arrived in the Normandy region in the past two days.
It coincides with the 80th anniversary of the Normandy landings this year, which is of great significance. At this time, I came to Normandy in a special mood.
I know that the Normandy landings were not as heroic as the propaganda we know, and it was not only about success and glory, but it was actually very brutal - about 240,000 people died on both sides, 240,000! The number of injured is even more numerous.
In my eyes, it is not a heroic deed, but one of the most bloodthirsty scenes in modern human history.
I wandered around Normandy, a rich and beautiful French countryside that drove hundreds of kilometers and the scenery was the same: endless rows of beautiful country houses, fertile farmland, and cattle and sheep living leisurely. It's hard for me to imagine that 80 years ago this place was a hell on earth, where millions of people spent their lives in senseless wars.
However, I had long known that there was a French-built German cemetery in Normandy, so I decided I had to pay a visit.
Everyone will think it is ridiculous when they hear about this existence - how can a country invaded build a cemetery for the enemy? It is also a monumental cemetery built with great fanfare and huge investment.
How much water has been put into the brain before the decision is made?
On the morning of the visit to the cemetery, it had just rained cold in Normandy and it was overcast.
The car turned around and stopped in front of the cemetery. It was a black-toned building with French, German and European Union flags at the door.
Well, I thought to myself, not only a cemetery was built for the enemy, but also the flag of Germany. French, I admire you.
Walking into the cemetery, there is an antechamber where there are some brief introductions about the cemetery. It tells you about the Normandy landings, some of the battles that took place in the area, and how the French built the cemetery.
However, what caught my eye after reading all of this was a slideshow of photos of German soldiers on a loop. They were all young, they all looked like they were about 20 years old, which was the best age.
However, the numbers for the year of their death below are fixed at two times: 1944 or 1945.
There was a table on the opposite side of the slide, and I flipped through the notebook on it and saw that it was a handwritten guest book for visitors.
When you open it, you see a line of words written in many different words:
"A dead soldier is never an enemy. The dead soldier was once a living young man whose life was simply disrupted by history and taken away from him. ”
This passage and the feeling that the slide behind me gave me, I instantly understood the meaning of the existence of this cemetery, and my eyes moistened a little.
Walk through the corridor and see a cross in the middle of the courtyard, surrounded by a circular cemetery.
Walking into the burial chambers one by one, like all cemeteries, each small square becomes the final destination of those who are alive. It was quiet and gloomy, but I heard them talking, laughing and playing, just like the young Germans I usually saw.
Just because they live in that generation, most of them have their lives fixed in their 20s.
Some of the German surnames written above are also familiar to me. Because I love watching football, those surnames are also the surnames of some of the most well-known German stars.
If they travel back in time to this era, they may also like to watch and play football. Instead of garrisoning Hitler on the icy Atlantic coastal tidal flats, in a life-and-death struggle with the landing Allied forces.
Next to some of the names, I saw garlands being offered.
I guess it was their relatives and friends who found them, so they gave them flowers. The garlands hung alone in the empty burial chamber, looking bleak and cold.
It was only a very small number of people who could still be remembered and found by relatives and friends after death, but most of the fallen soldiers, except for leaving their names, could only stay alone in this bitter cold place.
The structure of the cemetery is simple, it is a circular building, and it soon goes around in a circle. When I walked out, I walked through the porch where I had just entered. I picked up my pen and prepared to write Braille in the guest book.
But at this time, my heart was blank, and in the face of cruel history and compassionate love, I knew that any language was pale. Look up and see the statue of Jesus, which hangs there, silently watching it all. So I simply rewrote the message in Chinese that only had foreign languages:
"A dead soldier is never an enemy."
What exactly is the cemetery built for? Why did the invaders go to great lengths to collect the bodies of the invaders and commemorate them? I think this sentence condenses all the reasons.
It is that absolute compassion and love that transcends national hatred that makes the French understand that there is no point in simply hating their former enemies. Most of the people involved in the war were actually just young people who had been brainwashed by Nazi militarism, or who joined the army in confusion, and they were only pushed to the front line by the torrent of history, to blood and death.
Maybe a moment before they died, they still didn't know what it all meant.
So: "Their lives are simply disrupted by history." ”
They were supposed to be free and prosperous, falling in love, studying, and pursuing ideals, but in those days, society offered them only one ideal, that is, unconditional worship of Hitler and Nazi ideas, and constant brainwashing by the propaganda machine to make them believe that war was meaningful and that other countries were enemies.
They are victims not only of war, but also of the propaganda machine, of the hatred education of that country, of the fanaticism and irrationality of a nation.
Because, society no longer offers other possibilities, and you have no choice but to choose hatred.
I watched a German drama: "Our Fathers". It not only reflects on Nazi ideology, but also depicts the journey of several young people who were involved in the war and paid a heavy price.
It can only be said that in that era, they were destined to be cannon fodder.
What people should do is to prevent the recurrence of such extremist trends of thought and the recurrence of such history, instead of continuing to hate the enemy, continue to retribution for wrongs, and create more tragedies and cannon fodder.
The French are undoubtedly worthy of great respect, especially the people of Normandy, who agreed to build the cemetery, and I admire their greatness even more.
Because they were the ones who witnessed the most brutal wars, many of their relatives and friends must have died in the war. The cemetery was built not only for the German soldiers who died during the Normandy landings, but also for many German soldiers who died in the area during World War II. In those brutal years, these Germans may have killed the relatives of the people of Normandy with their own guns.
However, the common people of Normandy did not choose hatred, but compassion.
Compassion is the greatest force in the world, and it is also the best way for humanity to overcome hatred and eliminate ultra-nationalism.
As soon as I walked out of the cemetery, the rain stopped and the sun shone faintly on the vast land of the Normandy plain. In the distance, there is a fairytale-like beauty - Mont Saint-Michel.
I think that human beings are like this, how cruel they are, how beautiful they are. However, we must try to choose love and compassion first, and resist narrow-mindedness and hatred.
Only in this way can the darkness be dispelled.