Ypres Menengate

Got away for a long weekend with my youngest to West Flanders what we'd had in mind since years ~ visiting the land where the Great War came to a stand still, hence the endless battles that took place there and the numerous loss of young lifes... soldiers from England, France, Belgium, Germany and many Commonwealth conscripts from New Zealand, Australia, Canada, India.

This is one side of the Menenpoort (Menengate) at Ypres where since 1928 the Firebrigade's Volunteers blow every day of the week the Last Post at 20.00 'o clock in commemoration of the soldiers of The Great War ~ only during WW II this service was halted from May 1940 till September 1944, that is when the land was occupied then by the Nazi army.

There are a few WW I graveyards too with only German soldiers and now I learned that Hitler had visited this region little after his capture of Paris and he was pleased to see that the German soldiers of then were respected equally despite being the agressor of WW I. Hitler then decided that all warmonuments of the Great War were to be left in peace, only anti German texts on those monuments were to be deleted!
Some survived this order as locals covered the texts before the Germans could discover that...

Our trip along WW I sites was most impressive and what struck me most was that there were/are so many many others who visit these sites too, lots of families with young children from Belgium, France, Holland & UK.... obviously white skinned descendents of them who lived during the Great War years here in Western Europe

backblip