As Thursday marks 80e anniversary of the landing of June 6, 1944 in Normandy, the defenders of the controversial spectacle megaproject Normandy Memory, designed by Quebec designers, are very discreet.
Opponents of this permanent multimedia project, directed by Serge Denoncourt and scripted by Stéphane Roy, nevertheless continue to denounce it.
In a column published by the newspaper The world in April, around thirty descendants of French veterans of the landing denounced a “commercial and ridiculous” project, deeming it dishonorable for the memory of the missing.
A megaproject
The show project involves the construction of a vast building on a 25-hectare site which formerly housed a metallurgical factory in Caen. This theater would have 1000 moving seats, extending over 400 meters, where around thirty scenes of the landing, each lasting a few minutes, would be revealed to spectators. The proposal combines tableaux vivants, played by actors and extras, and a presentation of archive material. The project leaders, including the president of the urban community of Caen la mer, Joël Bruneau, hope to attract 600,000 visitors per year. After having been moved twice, notably for environmental reasons, the project should take root on the Caen la mer site, which is located in Caen, on the banks of the Orne, in 2025. First titled Homage to the heroes, it now bears the name of Normandy Memory.
Dominique Kieffer is the daughter of Commander Philippe Kieffer, who led the French commando of 177 men during the landing on Sword Beach, in Ouistreham, on June 6, 1944. Today, she gives workshops in schools commemorating the event and the war. She is, with her sister, one of the signatories of the letter denouncing the establishment of the project Normandy Memory in Caen the sea.
“I speak in schools to tell a little of my dad’s story, and young people have a completely wrong idea of the war. I come to explain to them that war is violence, it’s death, it’s horrible. I think they are not aware of that. And it’s not a show like Normandy Memory who will make them understand,” she said.
The “wow” effect
Critics of the project were particularly irritated by the promise of a “wow” effect, and organized themselves by forming the Association for the Dignity of Memorial Tourism.
“We are thinking of all the families of the veterans who landed there. And we frankly think that war is not a spectacle. And to present a show under the pretext of cultivating youth, we found it very ugly. We are told: “Young people need modern things.” But they take young people for idiots. Neither young people nor anyone else needs to see war as a spectacle,” continues Dominique Kieffer.
Normandy is dotted with museums and cemeteries, cemeteries from all allied countries, she notes. These cemeteries are acceptable places of contemplation for visitors and tourists. “It’s a land of blood and memories, Normandy,” adds M.me Kieffer. It’s terrible: all along this coast, and even in the hinterland, our fathers remained stuck with the enemy for days and days. »
From our point of view, this project is designed solely to make money and is not at all a duty to remember.
His father, Philippe Kieffer, who died in 1962, was concerned about the representation of the Normandy landings in the popular imagination. He was also an advisor for the film The longest day, filmed in 1961, which depicts the landing. “My father had asked to participate [à la création du film] so that we don’t talk nonsense. »
Children of veterans who oppose the project Normandy Memory are convinced that their fathers would not have appreciated the spectacle. Léon Gautier, one of the last French veterans who participated in this landing, himself decried it before passing away in 2023, like his compatriot Hubert Faure, who died in 2021. Since then, their children, their grandchildren children and their great-grandchildren took over to contest it.
“That’s the question we’ve all asked ourselves, the children of veterans. And we all really agreed that our fathers would not have liked that at all,” explains Dominique Kieffer.
Designed to make money
Laurent Choubrac, president of the Association for the Dignity of Memorial Tourism in Caen la Mer, also denounces the essentially commercial nature of the project, considered as a manifestation of “ business memorial”. “From our point of view, this project is designed solely to make money and is not at all a duty to remember. »
“We know that the landing sells well; there is great fear that with the disappearance of the last witnesses a dam will be broken which will give free rein to all appetites. The confirmation of this project in its new version would be the most cynical manifestation,” write the descendants of the veterans in their forum.
The building housing the project should be built on the site of a former metallurgical factory dear to regional history. After listening to citizens’ concerns, the designers added elements recalling the memory of this factory, which was occupied by the Germans, then bombed by the Allies at the time of Liberation.
People that The duty contacted, including Serge Denoncourt, Stéphane Roy, Joël Bruneau, from the urban community of Caen la mer, Hervé Morin, from the Normandy region, and even Régis Lefèvre, none called back. The detractors of the project, for their part, wanted to take advantage of the 80e anniversary of the landing to debate it. In November 2023, Stéphane Roy explained himself to local radio France Bleu.
“The work we have been doing for more than three years is indeed a work of listening. We are on a work of memory. We will follow all the little memories, archive images of simple people who lived through the Battle of Normandy, who lived through the occupation. In the same way, we will have humanity on the move, which will leave New York towards England, towards Sussex and then the landings,” he said.
In 2020, also on France Bleu, Serge Denoncourt responded to criticism of the project, which was then called Tribute to heroes. “At the time, he said, we had thought of a showcase, a welcome with a shop of local products that well represent Normandy. So, they tell me: “You want to make money.” I answer: like everyone else. We are not discouraged. We have our eco-responsible project, our Tribute to heroes. I met historians in Carentan, Caen, in Great Britain to be as precise as possible and not to do what we are accused of, that is to say a funny spectacle. I want to be respectful of History. »
The thirty signatories of the forum published in The world April 24, 2024 fears that the death of veterans will erase the realistic memory of the blood shed in Normandy in 1944.