One of the main traffic roundabouts in Reims isolates a grassy central island on which is set a monument that is rather hard to see in any great detail, due to the steady flow of vehicles that winds around it, largely indifferent to the sculpted forms it bears or the inscriptions in the rush to get some destination or other. It is in fact virtually impossible to know what the impressive column monument commemorates and for this reason, it tends to be overlooked.
It did however attract attention at the turn of the millenium when a hurricane bore down on the city, destroying the trees that encircled it, as well as wreaking havoc on the architecture of the city as a whole. Today it is difficult to believe that the large trees we see now are 'only' a quarter of a century old, planted in 2000 to replace those uprooted in the days after Christmas in 1999. The monument itself escaped the event seemingly intact, miraculously, albeit strangely exposed, without the trees' branches and leaves to shroud it.
The monument in question - dedicated to the allied nurses of the world - was set in place 100 years ago, almost to the day, on the 11th November 1924. Indeed, whilst each village, town and city in France possesses a commemorative edifice to honour its sacrificed soldiers and civilians, there are but three monuments erected to the memory of the nurses who died caring for others. It was
Juliette Lambert who decided to lead a committee to gather funds to assure the building of a monument « à la gloire des infirmières françaises et alliées victimes de leur dévouement » for the nurses who fell in the World War I. Reims was selected as the obvious site for this purpose as the
'ville martyre' had suffered horrendously during the hostilites, from the very outset in September 1914 until the end of the war, with its cathedral being the very emblem of French loss and sacrifice.
On the day of the monument's inauguration several years after the war, Juliette Lambert was present, but her speech was read out for her as she was already 88 years old by this stage. The sculpted relief on the monument shows two nurses giving care with great tenderness to an injured soldier from the Front, whilst on the other side of the cylindrical column stands an angel strewing roses, in a gesture representing renewal. The top of the column is decorated with a sculpted laurel leaf frise with a funerary urn decorated with pine cones - symbols of eternity - while the octagonal base bears the sculpted forms of scallop shells to symbolise hands opened out to other people, emblematic of the gesture of doctors and nurses towards their patients.
The architect Charles Girault, famous for his construction of
Le Grand and
Le Petit Palais in Paris and the sculptor Denys Puech were responsible for this work. The inscriptions along the column pay tribute to the devotion of the nurses;
"On land and sea they shared the dangers of the soldier. They braved in hospitals, bombed and torpedoed the fire of the enemy contagion, exhaustion.By consoling pain, they helped victory. Honour to them.
They will live forever in the memory of their homelands proud and grateful."
When I finally managed to dodge the traffic to make my way onto the island and look at the monument in detail, I noticed the commemorative plaque just below the symbolic Red Cross relief. This had been added following the Second World War (1939-1945), in reference to tragic losses due to bombing on the 30th May 1944. Although I was aware that Reims had suffered from Nazi occupation, deportations to the death camps and shellfire, I had not heard of any major bombing campaigns. Intrigued, I tried to find out the circumstances and fatal consequences of this incident and what I did discover surprised and shocked me in equal measure.
In order to rid the city of its Nazi occupants and above all cut enemy access and supplies, the American Airforce (USAF) sent over Flying Fortresses to strategically bomb specific sites, namely the Maistre barracks (previously
Caserne Neufchâtel), the railroad marshalling yards, locomotive workshops and the central train station itself. Three bombing waves were carried out in May 1944. However, it was the third of these, on 30th May, that resulted in significant civilian losses.
As the first bombs went off, the nurses and young students (14-19 years old) of the
Centre de formation Professionnelle in
Rue Belin went to offer their help as the area around the station and railway had been hit in the air raid. Most of the streets, literally minutes from my home, were affected but it was
Place Luton where the greatest tragedy took place. In order to protect themselves, the group took shelter in a house cellar but as bomb ripped through the building, exploding in the cellar vault, the blast and the thick, asphyxiating dust that followed killed 20 out of the 21 youngsters. Nurses from a nearby dispensary also died, as did ordinary civilians, thus taking the number of fatalities to 55, with far more injured aside. On visiting
Rue Belin and
Place Luton, I expected to see some mention of this tragedy but there is - apparently - absolutely no trace although a plaque is to be found in a local secondary school
Lycée Gustave Eiffel. I actually find that quite sad that a quiet city square should have been the site of such brutal devastation and yet today there is nothing to mark this or indeed to check the actual facts since all is rather vague. As there are plans to revitalise
Place Luton and make it greener and leafier, I sincerely hope the local council will take steps to honour these long-departed individuals of whom the city is supposed to be forever 'proud and grateful'. I did try to locate the fateful site on
Place Luton, and since the very plain house below was the only relatively 'recent' building in the square - the rest dating to the 19th century or the reconstruction of Reims after WWI - I can only assume this was it...
It was, of course, in Reims that the surrender of the Third Reich was agreed upon and signed, on the 7th May 1945, as General Eisenhower, the supreme commander of the
Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe, had previously transfered its headquarters from Versailles to Reims. This may be long-distant history today, but how can we know where we are, or what we have now if the traces of the past are wiped away or overlooked?
