French and Germans were told for many years that they were hereditary enemies. The nations fought wars against each other. The borders were re-arranged again and again depending on who “won” the last war.

But times change. Even politicians realised that going forward meant forging friendships. They founded the European Economic Community in 1957 together with Italy, Luxemburg, Belgium and the Netherlands which later developed into the European Union. Many French and German towns and cities were twinned – Städtepartnerschaften it is called in Germany, Jumelage in France.

In 1939 my father went as a soldier to France. In the 1960s he was involved with building friendships between people from our town, Weinheim, and Cavaillon in the South of France. Originally twinning only involved the town officials but my father and others made it an experience for the normal people, the employees and workers of the community.

When he retired he received these two illustrated books, one in French about Germany, one in German about France.

One had been signed by three German statesmen: Annemarie Renger, Willy Brandt and Helmut Schmidt. The other had a whole page handwriten by Alain Poher, the then president of the French Senate.

To me the “lest we forget” is meaningless without adding George Santayana’s maxim:

“Those who forget their history are condemned to repeat it.” 

The Cosmic Photo Challenge: Lest we forget

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