THIMISTER-CLERMONT, Belgium — As a schoolboy three quarters of a century ago, Marcel Schmetz would regularly see open trucks rumble past to a makeshift American cemetery — filled with bodies, some headless, some limbless, blood seeping from the vehicles onto the roads that the U.S. soldiers had given their lives to liberate.
Sometimes, Schmetz said, there were more than 200 bodies a day, casualties of one of the bloodiest and most important battles in World War II: The Battle of the Bulge which started 75 years ago today and effectively sealed the defeat of Nazi Germany.
“It gave me nightmares,” Schmetz said. It also gave the 11-year-old the resolve that, one day, he would give something back.
“I had to do something,” he said.
Fast forward to 2019, when memories are fading and relations between Europe and the United States deteriorating.
There’s a rambling house and converted warehouse in the bucolic, verdant hills that were once among the worst killing grounds of World War II. Zoom in to the living-room table, where Marcel, 86, sits with his wife, Mathilde, and one of the many WWII veterans that have shared coffee and cake — and often a nip of something stronger — with them, telling stories that span generations.
“Well, I don’t share them very often,” said Arthur Jacobson, who was just 20 when he fought in the Battle of the Bulge. “Once in a while, somebody is interested and I tell them a little bit.”
In Marcel and Mathilde’s home, which also serves as the Remember Museum 39-45, “a little bit” doesn’t count. Soon the former Bazooka operator was sharing stories of friends lost, ties gained, all between a chuckle and a moist eye.
For M&M, as the couple is known to fans from across the United States, remembering has become a mission in life, since memory brings understanding and friendship. They are not alone. From the shores of Normandy, where the allies first landed on D-Day, to the forests deep in the Belgian Ardennes, there remains a deep appreciation for what the soldiers did.
Yet, those people live on the scar tissue of war, where battlefields, memorials and cemeteries lie just a few miles away. That memory fades quickly the more one moves from the old front lines to European cities, where peace and prosperity has reigned for the best part of a century. The voices of the last witnesses of the war’s fighting, mostly in their 90s now, are becoming frailer by the day.
And with the growing questioning of trans-Atlantic ties and trust, the challenge to keep those bonds intact has increased.
It makes Marcel and Mathilde’s mission to connect all the more vital.
“Whoever is your president, whoever runs the show, the boys who were on the front lines, who still go out and fight for our freedoms, they need to know we appreciate them,” Mathilde said.
Lt. Col. Jim Moretti of the 171st Air Refueling Wing knows it well, and whenever he is in Germany on a mission he always makes the pilgrimage to M&M just across the border.
The first time he thought to spend perhaps half an hour in their small museum. Then he found out that the hardware sinks into insignificance compared to the software of the place — the stories which are linked to every item on show.
“We ended up being there for three, four, five hours,” he said.
“It gives me goosebumps. It’s sobering, humbling,” Moretti said.
It became even better when he was able to be part of such a story himself.
Soft-spoken local policeman Serge Fafchamps had something troubling him for a while. Through his family, he obtained a fist-sized Bible that had been left behind by Pvt. Millard Weekley in a local hotel during the war, likely in the rush to reach the front line.
Like so many locals, Fafchamps is strongly aware of the sacrifices U.S. soldiers made during WWII and wanted to make a gesture to show that in the 21st century it was not forgotten.
“It was, I think, the smallest of things, it was a friendly act that I hoped would deliver some happiness to the family,” he said.
Even though he got close to finding the family, there was still a missing link, and he long thought he had reached a dead end. Then, by chance, he learned of Marcel and Mathilde. Soon, they were on the case.
“I began to make these searches with the help of American friends,” Mathilde said. “Then, finally, someone found the daughter,” Paula Ferrell.
But they still needed someone to deliver the Bible, in person. So in walked Lt. Col Moretti, who saw, as luck would have it, that Ferrell lived close to his airbase in Coraopolis, Pa.
And one Sunday on the base, Ferrell and her family were handed the Bible.
“It was an amazing idea. I am so thankful for that,” Ferrell said.
