X
1] Notre Dame
Get up early and make your way to this much visited highlight of Paris. Find a good vantage point and marvel at the City of Light spread out below. Imagine being here at dawn on 25 August when bells began to ring out across Paris. That morning, there was not a cloud in the sky. Parisians looked at their watches, counting down the last minutes of living by Berlin time. Women pulled out their best dresses; others retrieved handcrafted tricolors and bottles hidden from the Boche. That very day was the feast of Saint Louis, patron saint of France. The Allies could not have chosen a better time to arrive.
2] The Hotel Meurice
Take a walk along the Rue de Rivoli and not far from the Louvre you’ll find the magnificent Hotel Meurice, one of the great hotels of Paris – “les grandes dames”. It was here that the commander of German forces, General von Choltitz, waited anxiously to surrender to uniformed representatives of the Allies—not the resistance, who might deliver swift justice. Choltitz had famously been ordered by Hitler to destroy Paris before the Allies arrived and his refusal to do so is why he was not shot or lynched on the spot when he finally surrendered on the afternoon of the 25th August.
3] Porte d’Orleans
Take a metro or taxi to the Place du 25 August 1944. Look around and imagine some of the most joyous scenes in French history. It was here, at around 9am, on 25 August, that the first French liberating troops appeared. They belonged to the French 2nd Armored Division which had come ashore on Utah Beach after D-Day. The troops were swarmed by ecstatic crowds. Women climbed aboard jeeps and kissed their liberators passionately. “Vive de Gaulle!” they cried. “Vive Leclerc!” Others shouted over and over again, “Merci, merci, merci!”
4] The Arc de Triomphe
This is a must-see place in Paris and the epicenter of the drama on 25th August. The French 2nd Armored Division trundled past the famous arch on the 1,525th day of German occupation. Some Germans were taken prisoner nearby. One of them threw a grenade at his captors. Soldiers took cover around the Arc de Triomphe and then the German prisoners were machine-gunned to death in retaliation. Their bodies lay in the open, beneath the hot sun, as far in the distance, down the Champs-Élysées, French soldiers and Americans from the 4th Division fired on German holdouts around the Place de la Concorde.
5] The Eiffel Tower
Go to the top if you can and imagine a fireman called Captain Lucien Sarniguet racing up all 1,750 steps of the Eiffel Tower on 25 August. He had last made the climb on June 13, 1940, to lower the flag from the top of the tower just before the Nazis arrived. That day of liberation, two other Frenchmen tried to beat him to the honor of putting the tricolor in its rightful place once more. Almost at the summit, Sarniguet passed his competitors, heart racing, pulled out a flag and then raised it on a flagpole. It was made from three old bedsheets. But no one in the rapturous city below cared. After 1,532 days, the tricolor was back where it belonged.
6] The Ritz Hotel
The extraordinarily luxurious hotel was the scene of one of the most celebrated, if perhaps apocryphal scenes of liberation – the arrival of writer Ernest Hemingway and his followers. Legend has it that the manager welcomed “Papa” – as Hemingway was nicknamed - and his merry band—a group of perhaps a dozen—at the entrance. When asked if they required anything other than lodging, Hemingway’s party promptly ordered fifty martini cocktails.
7] The Hotel de Ville
At the very heart of central Paris, this famous building was where General Charles de Gaulle made his most memorable appearance in public during WWII. Late on the afternoon of 25 August, the leader of Free French Forces stepped onto the balcony of the Hôtel de Ville before an ecstatic crowd and made the best speech of his life. “Paris!” he cried. “Paris outraged. Paris broken! Paris martyred! But Paris liberated! Liberated by itself, liberated by its people with the help of the French armies, with the support and the help of all France, of the France that fights, of the only France, of the real France, of the eternal France!” He neglected to mention the US 4th Infantry Division which had fought close by that day.
8] The Champs Elysees
At dusk, wander along the grandest avenue in Paris. Imagine the lights coming on for the first time in four years as Parisians sing “La Marseillaise” from windows all along the avenue and indeed throughout the city. “[It] was like a champagne dream,” remembered one war correspondent. In the words of an ecstatic young American private called Irwin Shaw, “it was the day the war should have ended.”
9] Pere Lachaise cemetery
Even if you’ve been to Paris many times, this cemetery if well worth the visit. Many of France’s greatest artists and writers are buried here. Edith Piaf’s grave is always covered in flowers and perhaps more visited than the final resting place of the legendary Doors frontman, Jim Morrison. In one corner of the graveyard, you’ll find monuments to the resistance and those deported during Nazi occupation. It’s a fitting place to reflect on the price paid during four years of ever greater terror by brave Frenchmen and women, and by the Jewish community.
10] 11 Avenue Foch
A short stroll from the Arc de Triomphe, Avenue Foch was dubbed “Avenue Boche” during the occupation because many of its great mansions became bases for the most murderous of the Gestapo and SS. 11 Avenue Foch was home to the American family, the Jacksons, who joined the French resistance. Maine-born Sumner Jackson was head surgeon at the American Hospital and died in the last days of the war having survived Neuengamme concentration camp. His son, Philip, miraculously lived, as did his wife, Toquette. Indeed, while 25th August was a wondrous event for so many Parisians, others were that very day at the heart of the Third Reich, struggling to stay alive, having dared to defy Hitler.
