Putting up the hood of my rain jacket and carrying an umbrella, I climbed off the tour bus. My Lumix camera hung around my neck. After entering the French village of Authie, via “Rue de 37 Canadiens” we now disembarked into a pretty churchyard in l’Abbaye d’Ardenne – a collection of mediaeval buildings that include a Gothic church and several farmhouses.
En route, our guide had explained the Canadian significance of this tiny village surrounded by fields. Our sombre mood was palpable. Soft drizzle, fresh greenery of a May morning, and silence enveloped the group as we followed our guide toward the memorial.
In 2018, we 23 Canadians were in Normandy, France, on the tour: “D-Day: The Canadian Experience.” Our itinerary aligned with key sites where Canadian, British, and American Forces battled the Germans on June 6th, 1944. Allied and German cemeteries were visited whenever the geography made sense. This was Day 5, and we’d shortly return to Paris.
Until now, we’d all been celebrating the incredible success of D-Day’s Operation Overlord. Such meticulous planning; such courage; such patriotic pride! Somehow, I’d not thought much about what had happened on June 7th and the weeks that followed. I was about to be informed.
I read the names of 20 Canadians carved onto a plaque, and noticed their individual portraits affixed to a long wall.
Standing under my dripping umbrella, I read the Canadian Battlefields Foundation plaque.
“On 7 June 1944, commanders of 25th Panzer Grenadier Regiment, 12th SS Panzer Division watched from these rooftops as the Canadian vanguard approached. After a day long battle for the villages of Authie and Buron, eleven Canadians taken prisoner were executed in this garden. Seven more Canadian
prisoners were interrogated here the next day. After shaking hands with their comrades, each young man was either shot or bludgeoned to death. Some of their bodies were buried in this garden. Two more Canadian prisoners were killed nearby on or about 17 June 1944.”
These 20 were not the only POWs the Germans executed after D-Day.
From www.veterans.gc.ca:“As many as 156 Canadian prisoners of war are believed to have been executed by the 12th SS Panzer Division (the Hitler Youth) in the days and weeks following the D-Day landings. In scattered groups, in various pockets of the Normandy countryside, they were taken aside and shot.”
With regard to l’Abbaye d’Ardenne,www.veterans.gc.ca explains: “Jan Jesionek, a young Polish soldier who had been pressed into service in the Hitler Youth Division, was witness to both the interrogation and shooting, and reported them after the war. Their bodies were hastily buried in this churchyard.”
The Vico family lived on the grounds of the church. In March 1945, Madame Vico decided to tend her garden, in which she’d planted flower bulbs the previous autumn. She was surprised to find that her row of snowdrop flowers had been disturbed and replanted in a disorderly fashion. Digging up the garden
exposed the bodies.
I’ve read that the Vico descendants remain dedicated to the memory of the young Canadians who died here.
While absorbing this horrific account, I began to shiver. Rain was getting heavier, and I was getting colder. I focussed on the poppies and Canadian flags left by recent visitors, affixed to trees nearby. Just like those I’ve nonchalantly affixed to my coat every November 11th. How poignant to find them all the way over here in France.
Back on the bus, I photographed the pastoral scene across the road. Raindrops on the bus window
distort the bright green vegetation in the photo. And remind me of the tears that stung my eyes as I stood in that churchyard.
