![]() Yet while these sites deserve attention, it wasn’t until I walked through the trenches in and around Fleury-devant-Douaumont that I started to feel the true magnitude of the war. Located on a hill that cascades from the necropolis and ossuary, a cemetery contains a sea of more than 15,000 white headstones – Christian, Jewish and also Muslim, reminders that French colonial forces were instrumental in defeating the Germans at Verdun. Just a few minutes drive away, the Douaumont National Necropolis and Ossuary contains the skeletal remains of about 130,000 French and German soldiers. Inside the zone, south of Fleury-devant-Douaumont, the Mémorial de Verdun (a museum and memorial opened in 1967 by the government) offers stunning exhibits that give visitors a more comprehensive overview of the war. Just outside the Red Zone, a small private museum, Romagne ‘14-‘18, tells the personal stories behind a large collection of war memorabilia. Besides the villages, which are open year-round and deemed safe to visit, a few museums and other sites have been erected to memorialise the soldiers who lost their lives for their countries. Although no-one lives in any part of the Red Zone and much of it is still considered too dangerous for visitors, French law recognises the destroyed villages as municipalities – there are even designated mayors who receive government money to receive guests and preserve the memory of what’s left. How Crete changed the course of World War TwoĪfter the war ended in 1918, the French government deemed 1,200 sq km of non-contiguous land near Verdun too dangerous to inhabit and too costly to rehabilitate.A French village committed to deception.
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