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Up Keller-Maag (2) Keller-Maag (3) Keller-Maag (4) Keller-Maag (5)
 
 

- 4 -

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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