Oops, that's not the same war. This journal entry is all tucuxii's fault, by the way. ( http://www.h2g2.com/dna/h2g2/brunel/F16034?thread=8310104 ) In my parents' village there is a war memorial. Nothing unusual about that, pretty much every town and village has one. Although some of them date back to the 1870 war against Prussia, most (and indeed, this one) were erected after world war one. It was, after all, supposed to be the war to end all wars - or as we call it in France, "la der des der", the last of the last. (It didn't even have a number then. That came later). On these monuments, you can read the names of those who died during the wars. There are ceremonies to commemorate the wars: to remember the loss, the sacrifice, and celebrate peace. These happen every year on November 11th (end of WW1), May 8th (end of WW2), and July 14th (Bastille day, our national holiday). At my parents' village, these ceremonies start with a bit of a procession, from the "town" hall to the memorial itself. (That's about 50 metres). There's a local brass band that does the rounds to play at all the villages. Then someone reads a speech, and they read the names. Then there's a moment's silence, followed by a bit more music, and off we go marching to the village hall for a drink and a bite. But those ceremonies are also a time for (most of) the inhabitants to get together as a community, which is the major reason why we went as a family. Now. Having been dragged to those ceremonies by my parents two to three times a year for most of my life with them, the names of those dead people (most of them soldiers, but a few civilians too) have become familiar, even though I am not related to them in any way. Most of them have names from the area, family names that are still around nowadays, big, old families that have been living there for a long time, and - given the chance - will be for even longer. One of them, though. One of those soldiers who died in WW1 and is commemorated on that monument. He has a very unusual name for the area. A Breton name. Brittany being all the way to the other side of the country, it's more than a little surprising. Turns out, he was an orphan, and he was sent to a farm here to work, as was customary at the time. Then came the war, and he was conscripted, along with most young men from the village. And when he died in the war, since he had no family, it was decided that his name would be put right there, along with the names of the men who had been born in the village. Another entry on there is "plus sept inconnus" ("and seven unknown people"). For a very long time, the memory of who those were was thought to be lost. All that was known was that they were civilians. Then, one day, an old lady met a man from my parents' village, and explained to him that the reason she couldn't speak in a normal voice was because of something that had happened there when she was a baby. She had been born there. That part of France was invaded by the Germans when they came in through Belgium, so when she was a baby, there were German soldiers in the village. One day, her brother and his friends were playing in the street. One of them picked up a piece of wood and pretended it was a rifle. The soldiers were *not* pleased. They put the boys in a line. The mother tried to protest, but a soldier stuck his bayonnette against her baby's throat, so she backed off. And they executed the boys. All seven of them. The old lady remembered her brother's name, of course, but not the others. So the memorial remained the same.