In 1996, the Volksbund set up its first peace park in the immediate vicinity of the French war cemetery at La Cambe.
Cemetery description
The La Cambe military cemetery is located just a few kilometers from Omaha Beach on the French Atlantic coast. US troops landed on this stretch of coast on June 6, 1944 (D-Day). La Cambe is the largest German military cemetery in Normandy and was designed by the architect Robert Tischler. One of his central design principles is a narrow entrance to the cemetery, through which only one person at a time can enter the site. Tischler's aim was to bring people to peace and silence when they enter the memorial. A narrow entrance can be found at almost all of the war cemeteries he designed. Communal graves are at the center of the complex, as is the almost six-meter-high tumulus. Instead of individual crosses as grave markers, there are groups of symbolic crosses that bear no names.
An exhibition in the information center documents examples of what people had to endure during the war. It describes fates and allows people to have their say. The images and stories of death, suffering, destruction and war graves are juxtaposed with hopeful examples of reconciliation, understanding and friendship.Occupancy
Today, 21,245 German soldiers have found their resting place in La Cambe. The burial mound contains 207 unknown and 89 known dead.
History
More than 100,000 people died in the summer of 1944 during the fighting following the Allied landings in Normandy. At least 14,000 French civilians lost their lives. Even during the fighting in Normandy, the American Salvage and Identification Service laid out two large cemeteries near the small village of La Cambe with their own and German casualties. After 1945, the Americans moved their dead to the St. Laurent-sur-Mer cemetery, 15 kilometers away. The bodies of the German soldiers were exhumed there and buried in La Cambe. At the beginning of the Volksbund's reburial work in 1954, the La Cambe cemetery was already one of the largest provisional German military cemeteries of the Second World War in France, with around 8,000 dead. Subsequently, the remains of 12,000 German soldiers from 1,400 graves and a further 700 bodies found at scattered war sites in Normandy were interred at La Cambe. The La Cambe war cemetery was officially dedicated on September 21, 1961.
Special feature
in 1957, an international youth camp was held under the motto "Reconciliation over the graves", during which young people from several nations helped the Volksbund to create a war cemetery in France for the first time. Next to the cemetery is the Peace Park, which the Volksbund opened in 1996. There, 1,200 globe maple trees grow as living symbols of peace and reconciliation. La Cambe is the Volksbund's first peace park. In the following years, three more were created in Budaörs (Hungary), Groß Nädlitz (Poland) and Sologubowka (Russia).
Note
Barrier-free access to the cemetery was completed in 2012. Thanks to a direct connection to the bus parking lot, visitors can reach the war cemetery quickly and easily. In July 2016, the Volksbund installed a stainless steel railing so that older people can also safely make the ascent to the burial mound.
