‘In Normandy, we remember’

Travelling nearly 7,000 km from his home in France to Winnipeg gave Gabriel Zaranski a new perspective on warfare.

“It’s very different to speak about war in school (than) to speak with real people who (have fought) in a war,” he said. “We can feel the emotion when they speak … The testimony has more impact when it’s real soldiers.”

Zaranski is one of 14 Grade 12 students from Bayeux, a town in France’s Normandy region, in Winnipeg this week for a learning tour.

The students, who attend Lycée Arcisse de Caumont high school, met on Saturday with veterans from the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders of Canada, a local military regiment, to discuss their studies and the regiment’s role in the Second World War.

“Without Canadian soldiers, we wouldn’t be here today,” said Janel Khouildi, one of the students. “We’re grateful for all that soldiers do for the world. We’re also impressed; the job of a soldier is so brave.”

Young people in Normandy learn about the Second World War throughout middle school and high school, said Racha Madeleine, the students’ teacher. Additionally, there are some 40 ceremonies throughout Normandy each summer commemorating the soldiers who fought to liberate occupied France.

“In Normandy, we remember,” she said.

Madeleine first connected with the Camerons more than a year ago. While walking through a military cemetery in Bayeux, she found the graves of 10 members of the regiment.

“I had never heard of the Camerons,” Madeleine said. “There has been an Americanization of D-Day and a lot of the kids forget that it was actually the Allies who landed on the beaches, not just the Americans.”

The Camerons fought in the Battle of Normandy, landing 20 km northeast of Bayeux in the town of Graye-sur-Me one month after D-Day. Madeleine decided her class would learn about the regiment’s history in their area.

As part of her research, she sent the Camerons an email. A day later, she received a response from Hugh O’Donnell, a retired regimental sergeant-major. The two have been exchanging emails a couple times a week ever since and become friends along the way.

Madeleine said she had no intention of taking her students on an international trip, but as soon as she told them about the Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders of Canada, they started asking if the class could visit Winnipeg.

After months of planning and fundraising, the class arrived in the Manitoba capital on Thursday. The opportunity to meet the Camerons and hear the regiment’s stories is “very precious,” Madeleine said.

“When we were talking about soldiers who died, sometimes it’s just names that (the students) read in commemorations,” she said. “But when they study about their lives and their families, and see their faces on the photographs and how they were farmers and teachers and just normal people, it gives a completely different dimension and importance to them.”

Forming a relationship with Madeleine and her students, and helping them with their research, has been meaningful for O’Donnell, who knew Second World War veterans.

“We say around Remembrance Day (that) we will remember them,” he said. “I like to actually keep that promise.”

Saturday’s event culminated with the Camerons presenting the students and their chaperones with regimental coins, signifying that they are honorary members of the regiment.

“The coins are presented to serving members and to those who have done some sort of service for us,” O’Donnell said. “We recognize and honour … these kids, because they took a special interest in promoting the memory of the Camerons overseas.”

Each student was also presented with a pin and a copy of Winnipeg’s Ladies from Hell, a 2010 book commemorating the Camerons’ 100th anniversary. (German soldiers in the First World War referred to the Camerons, who fought in kilts at that time, as “ladies from hell.”) Their itinerary includes visits to The Forks and the Canadian Museum for Human Rights and spending a day with students at Churchill High School.

They’ll also spend time learning about the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation and the history of Canada’s residential school system.

aaron.epp@freepress.mb.ca