Paris – The Deportation Martyrs Memorial - 4me

Plate XXXV - The Deportation Martyrs Memorial - Entrance… 

DEDICATED TO THE LIVING MEMORY OF THE 200,000 FRENCH DEPORTEES SLEEPING IN THE NIGHT AND THE FOG, EXTERMINATED IN THE NAZI CONCENTRATION CAMPS.

Stark.

That one word describes this memorial created on the site of an old mortuary on the Île de la Cité. It commemorates the lost lives of the 200,000 men, women and children deported through Vichy to the Nazi concentration camps during the Second World War. Designed by Georges-Henri Pingusson, the memorial was opened in 1962. 

Deliberately created, a feeling of claustrophobia envelopes the visitor entering the subterranean cavern, lined with 200,000 illuminated crystals. An eternal flame of hope burns before the Tomb of the Unknown Deportee.

Forgive, but never forget.

Paris – Notre Dame Rose Windows - 4me

Plate XXXI - Notre Dame, Rose Window...

One has to time a visit perfectly to get the best illumination effect through the glass of any of the three rose windows in the church. Unusually for me, I think I timed it perfectly for the south transept window.

During later visits to France, and even using considerably more sophisticated electronic camera equipment I have found it challenging both in Notre Dame, and in Chartres to capture the colours of the glass work this spectacularly.

Fearing their destruction by German bombers during the Second World War the windows of Notre Dame were removed and placed in protective storage, to be returned to the cathedral after the liberation of Paris, and the war’s end. Consequently, all three rose windows still display, mostly, their original 13th century glazing. When I contemplate the deliberate destruction of our global heritage caused by wars and conflicts over the centuries (and it continues to this day) I am saddened by man’s disrespect for the past and the future of humanity, for surely this heritage belongs, not only to a single country, but to each of us.