On 6 August 1940, six German aviators paraded into Madame Marie Louise Osmont's chateau. For the next four years she poignantly recorded her story of military invasion into her home and life. The following excerpts from her diaries paint a picture of life on the home front in Normandy:
"6 August, 1940 - To me, they represent the invasion, the defeat. To see these 6 aviators wearing boots settle down in three rooms . . . I was heart-broken. Still, the house (I no longer have a maid) was clean and neat, . . . flowers in the vases. The garden is still pretty to see despite the departure of Maurice, the gardener, taken prisoner . . . .
18 August, 1940 - Small bombardment, not too far, by planes. The men are all excited. The officer . . . orders trenches be dug in the enclosed field . . . . The men eat anywhere and throw on the ground what they dislike . . . . The village has them almost in every house.
1942 - They seem almost happy . . . . Sometimes they show me the picture of dead comrades. I have learned to raise my shoulders and say, "c'est la guerre," as they do when, in fact, it is horrible!
1943 - Denise manages to cook some nettles. It's not all that bad, but with the lack of fat it is not very nourishing! I drink a lot of water several times a day. It quells the stomach cramps . . . . I'm hungry.
15 February 1944 - A frame on the first floor: a life-size portrait of Hitler!!! What horror! I come across an NCO . . . he looks at me, gestures towards the picture and emits a loud pssssscht of disgust . . . . The 6-ton trucks drive over the cyclamen . . . what sadness. One of them was even positioned on the rose garden that runs alongside the wall. This one drove over the tender iris shoots and over the lilies . . . .
4 May, 1944 - Catastrophic day preceded by a sleepless night due to the noise of the relentless coming and going of automobiles, trucks, and tracked vehicles . . . . In the end, I don't despise all these men in the same way. With the exception of some hot-heads, they are men like any other . . . when they show me the photographs of their family, then, they cry.
6 June 1944 - Debarquement!! . . . . I am awakened by the massive rumbling of planes and the continuous yet distant firing of guns . . . . The planes keep flying overhead in tight formations, they circle continuously . . . . A shell made a big hole in the stable killing a beautiful calf and a ewe, wounding another calf . . . . On the "chateaux" side, hundreds of tiles were blasted away. A tank or airplane round landed in the courtyard just outside the kitchen . . . . Everything's been ravaged: clocks, china, pots and pans, the walls.
7 June 1944 - We'll spend much of our time scurrying to the shelter. The blasts of ship's guns empty you of everything. It feels like a mad train rushing through your body . . . . At ten o'clock I am wounded . . . . I am frantic with terror, hugging the ground. I instinctively raise my head and I see a plane coming down in flames. I am mad with terror and distress . . . . Yes, I think I can stand up. So then I run . . . . Out of breath, I scramble to the kitchen. I take off my leather belt and I understand that it has probably just saved my life . . . . A German plane was shot down early this morning . . . . We learn that some Germans are still hiding in the woods. One of the farm hands leads them--defeated, pale, their hands tied behind their backs, guarded by machine gun-toting tommies . . . . The sight of these men . . . I am overwhelmed by such human misery. I would like to comfort them, to reassure them . . . . The English, machine gun and revolver in hand, are searching every house. Since some of the doors are locked, they find it very natural to shoot the lock off the doors to my room. The tommies have broken into the rooms of the farm house and stolen first communion rosaries, pens, alarm clocks, and 1500 francs . . . . I had never seen the Germans behave in such a way.
10 June 1944 - We become the first camp for all those troops arriving from the beaches . . . . Burial in the back of the pasture of 3 Germans and 4 British. Simple, moving. The men's attitude was natural and human. None of the military stiffness of the Germans. The priest, without interrupting his prayers, throws a handful of dirt over each of the bodies. No military commanders, no volleys. It is not conventional, it is human. What a difference from the other army--the German.
15 June 1944 - They tell us England has only one concern: to send bountiful supplies as soon as possible. Let's hope so, otherwise we are sure to starve this winter.
22 June 1944 - It's 6 o'clock. In a breathtakingly pure sky bursting with sunlight, fly wave after wave of glistening silver planes--heavy, slow, and terrible. They are off to shower death. Where? I quiver at the thought of all those poor French below, for Caen perhaps? What a monstrous thing . . . .
25 June 1944 - Very tough night. Planes, bombs, cannonade over Beville. Demolished houses. Mr. Sciot, killed. I still manage to sleep a little. One gets used to everything . . . . At eight in the evening, a sad procession of unfortunate victims fleeing Beville . . . .
12 July 1944 - I leave Periers at 10 in the morning . . . . The sight on Place Saint Pierre is jarring. I'm alone, the silence is complete as I contemplate this desolation. The thin, aerial spire of St. Pierre is no longer. The Hotel Descouville, that wonder, is destroyed. The houses that surround the place are no more. I give up trying to find my friends. No one can possibly be living in this mass of broken walls. I am still alone in this square, once bursting with life and activity.
21 July 1944 - Yesterday's assassination attempt on Hitler was confirmed, indicating the existing disintegration . . . . " (1)
Madame Osmont's lovely garden chateau was one of thousands of homes ravaged by the invasion. In Normandy alone, over 200,000 buildings were damaged or destroyed. In the city of Caen where Madame Osmont had searched through rubble looking for her friends, 9,000 of 15,000 buildings were bombed or shelled flat.
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1. From the "Diary of Madame Marie Louise Osmont," used with permission of the author and Discovery Communications, Inc.
