Fleury-devant-Douaumont France, December 2018.
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Fleury-devant-Douaumont
One of the eight “villages that died for France”, Fleury-devant-Douaumont lies within the French Zone Rouge. The area is saturated with live explosive and gas shells, grenades and ammunition. The ground is so polluted by lead, mercury, chlorine, arsenic, animal and human remains that it remains uninhabitable over 100 years after the end of the war.
In 2013 German tourists discovered the remains of 26 French soldiers that had died during the Battle of Verdun. A tree stump in the crater where the soldiers where found has been carved into a sculpture as a memorial to the men. The location of individual residences and town structures are marked with pillars along where the village street used to lay. A chapel was built in the early 1930’s as a place where those that survived the war could meet when visiting the site where their village once thrived.
Fleury-devant-Douaumont had a population of 422 before the Great War. The village is represented by Mayor Jean-Pierre Laparra, but the population of the town today is officially zero.
I visited a number of the Village Détruit while I was in the Verdun area. Each one was a quiet, peaceful but very sad place.
February 27, 2019
