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It must have been frightful for those young men, many
of them coming from the safety of their homes thousands of miles away,
to face death and mutilation on a strange beach, in a war which had not
directly threatened their country. We, the Swiss youth knew then, and
many of us still remember now, 50 years later, that it was mainly thanks
to the Anglo-American efforts that we were saved. That by the grace of
God, through the sacrifices of many thousands of Americans, we were
spared. We escaped the horrors which Jewish children all over Europe had
to suffer, we were spared the fate of the children of Russia, of Poland,
of Holland, to name only a few, who suffered so terribly under the cruel
German occupation; we were spared the fate of the children of Oradour in
France, who were shot or burned alive by German SS war-criminals.
I have, later, cried without shame, when visiting Allied war-cemeteries
in France and Holland. Their graves hold the men who gave their lives
while saving us.
Now, fifty years later, you, the surviving veterans
may proudly remember those days on the beaches and think of the friends
you lost there. You, the wives and children, mothers and fathers,
sisters, brothers and friends of those brave soldiers, will be
mournfully remembering your loved ones. Some of you veterans may still
be suffering in body or mind from wounds received then. I know that I
can give you but little consolation; my inadequate English may not even
let me express my feelings properly. But let me still say it as well as
I can: To us. those men on the beaches of Normandy have been heroes.
They, together with the many thousands of Allied soldiers killed earlier
or later in that war, have saved us. To you, the proud veterans, to the
mourning relatives who have lost their dearest, but especially to you
the victims who have been cut down so early in your life, who have been
drowned, torn up, mutilated by a seemingly senseless fate, let me say:
Thank you! Your sacrifices and sufferings shall not be forgotten. It has
not all been in vain. A little schoolboy has prayed for you, fifty years
back. Because he knew that you, each one of you. have helped him and
millions of other children to survive in freedom. And he, like thousands
of those children, is now, fifty years later, still gratefully
remembering you, praying again: May God bless you!, and saying once
more: Thank you:
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