Sojourn 5: Lorraine, France- Land of my Forbearers

Sojourn 5: Lorraine, a department in northeastern France 

I cannot make a visit to northern France without passing by the Jantzi homestead near Bistroff in the Lorraine department of France. Lorraine was also the scene of some horrendous warfare during World War II. That war happened one hundred years after my ancestors, along with most of their community, had emigrated to Lewis County, New York. The emigration was motivated primarily out of a desire to live in a country where there sons would not be forced to participate in carnage such as this.

 

My hosts during these four days were Frieda Oesch and Christine Beck. I met Frieda probably 20 years ago through Mennonite Your Way connections. She lives in Diessen. Christine is from nearby Creutzwald and I met her in 2009 at Mennonite World Conference in Paraguay. She was at the conference last year in Harrisburg, where we started plans for this tour of France. Here on a sightseeing day out we stopping by a German ice cream shop to indulge in the goodies.

 

The Jantzi homestead near Bistroff. We are not sure how long the Amish community was in this area, but perhaps for 150 years. Here they were refugee peasants from Switzerland, eking out a hand to mouth existence, working for a wealthy landowner. In 1830’s the Amish community of Bistroff emigrated to northern New York state.

 All over northern France there are reminders of the tragedy and futility of war. Casualties of World War II, both civilian and military are at least 60 million. Near the village of Bistroff, in St. Avold there is a U.S. military cemetery where 10,500 U.S. soldiers are interred in 113 acres of neatly manicured lawns. It’s a place of hushed silence where visitors are encouraged to contemplate the lives and sacrifice of those who died for this noble (?) cause.  

 

A spacious memorial chapel on a knoll above the cemetery attempts to some how put together the incredible horrors of war with faith in God, patriotism and eternal life. At the front of the chapel above the altar with a cross is the body of a soldier, a war casualty ascending to heaven under the approving gaze of four patron saints of U.S. civil religion: King David, King Arthur, the Roman Emperor Constantine and George Washington. 

 

This engraving on one of the chapel walls is a concise statement of the myth of redemptive violence: These millions died so that, us who remain are, presumably, able to live in peace and freedom. For further comment please go to my essay-  Redemptive violence vs. Redemptive love  & grace found elsewhere in Gospel Feet.

Another grim reminder of the savagery of World War II is in a secluded woods near Creutzwald where the Nazis maintained a concentration camp for Ukrainian refugees during the German occupation of northern France 1939-44. Here at least 23,000 Ukrainians were slaughtered by the Nazis. The Nazi military who operated the camp lived in these, now decayed, substantial buildings, enjoying their exalted position of Aryan superiority.

This cemetery near Creutzwald has a walled-off plot that helps us understand why Mennonites have nurtured a separate and unique ethnicity: The Catholic state/church would not allow Anabaptists to be buried in the community cemetery but they did concede to granting them to be buried in an adjoining walled-off area.