Even now, the work of understanding how civilians in Normandy suffered through and survived their liberation continues. The long-rotten remains of straw beds amid the puddles and gooey mud eloquently speak of the extreme discomfort the refugees endured. D-Day planners expected Allied troops to quickly take the strategic city but German resistance was so furious that its liberation instead took six weeks. She would sneak out, too, clambering up a narrow shaft from the quarry to see the destruction for herself. She remembers her father taking the boots off a German officer’s corpse, because he’d lost his own shoes.

Source: National Post May 29, 2019 09:44 UTC