D-Day June 6, 1944 …
Mowed down by lead spewing from Nazi machine guns,
Young men sliced on the the beaches of Normandy,
Blood stained the salty sea crimson,
Torn limbs and lifeless bodies scattered along Juno, Gold, and Omaha beach,
Young men, shredded by shrapnel,
Holding the line,
Inch by blood-soaked inch,
As the fascist juggernaut was brought down to its knees,
And still the fight raged on,
From the eastern front to the acts of valour,
Carried out by partisans in the name of freedom from the jackboot of Nazism,
There was a young man called Spartaco Fontanot and I end this poem with a letter he wrote to his mother :
Dear Mum*,
Of all people I know you are the one that will feel it most, so my very last thoughts go to you. Don’t blame anyone else for my death, because I myself chose fate.
I don’t know what to write to you, because, even though I have a clear head, I can’t find the right words.
I took my place in the Army of Liberation, and I die as the light of victory is already beginning to shine … I shall be shot very shortly with twenty three other comrades.
After the war you must claim your rights to a pension. They will let you have my things at the jail, only I am keeping Dad’s undervest, because I don’t want the cold to make me shiver…
Once again I say goodbye.
Courage!
Your son.
Spartaco
(Spartaco Fontanot, metalworker, twenty-two years old,member of the French Resistance group of ‘Misak Manouchian’, 1944)
* – from Eric Hobsbawn’s book ‘Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century 1914 – 1991′
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