Desacration at the Douaumont Ossuary

[trenchtrotter]

Sly,

Thankyou for raising this issue. I can only apologise for the way this thread has been hijacked. Always seems the same people sometimes and makes one ashamed. We are all entitled to views but should learn where to post them and when to!

Whilst I did not like the ossuary (the portals I mean) I understand the culture (go to Brittany) and also the different attitudes.

Getting back I hope the perpetrators are caught and the remains returned.

Thanks again

TT

[SWorrall]

Thanks Sly for bringing it to our attention. A shocking and nasty story.

Norman: The shop in the Douaumont Ossuaire is not unique, nor is it a cultural phenomenon peculiar to the French.

The Visitor Centre at Thiepval, the largest CWGC memorial in the world, has a gift shop, a commercial side. They sell things to visitors. I have occasionally made a purchase there.

The Ulster Tower sells refreshments. I've had many a pleasant cuppa and the odd bite to eat there. Perhaps you have also?

The 'Musee des Abris' in Albert with its strong British emphasis in the exhibits, sees many coach parties, especially of British schools. The exit is unsurprisingly via the gift shop area, as it is at the Historial in Peronne.

Dominique in Pozieres, and Avril in Ocean Villas, to quote a couple of examples, have trench exhibits which one can take a turn around for a small fee.

Many of the museums in the Ypres area charge for entrance.

I could name you many others at 'British/British-flavoured/British-oriented' sites.

Matthew 7:3. 'Why beholdest thou the mote that is in your brother's eye, but consider not the beam which is in thine own eye'.

Do not decry a practise happening at a French-run/-oriented site whilst ignoring that the same thing happens at more than one of the 'British' sites.

Simon.

[Dragon]

If people who experienced the dreadful horrors of Verdun, if people who were bereaved by Verdun, if the French people decided in the early painful aftermath that the Ossuaire de Douaumont was how they wished to commemorate their losses, then who are we to say that it's inappropriate, or irreverent, or indecent? To claim it's any of those is culturally illiterate.

Some comments are verging on blaming the theft on the way the remains are displayed, which to my mind misses the point entirely.

Gwyn

[Tom W.]

Whilst I of course condemn such an act I never did understand why the bones of the fallen should be on display, seems somewhat irreverent to me.

Actually, ossuaries exist in many cultures, including the Persian, Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Jewish, and Slavic. The term "charnel house" is synonymous. Collecting the bones of the dead where they can be viewed has only recently been considered "irreverent." The Jewish rabbinical answer to "Why have visible ossuaries?" is "That the world may know."

Generally ossuaries and charnel houses were created because they take up much less space than individual graves. They allow countless individuals to be placed in one tomb and they also allow relatives to visit the remains of their ancestors and achieve a sense of immediacy and connection in a way that a tombstone above ground can't provide.

I've never been to a European war memorial or ossuary. This is how Americans handle the disrespectful behavior of visitors at such places:

[Khaki]

Let me try and put this as simply as I can, if the human bones were not on display and could not be viewed through glass windows at the back of the memorial then there would not be the opportunity for the idiots concerned to break said windows and for skulls to be stolen as you yourself record in the initial post. I care not for how the French or any other country other than the UK treat their war dead but it is obvious that by making the viewing of the bones some sort of attraction as evidenced by the photos freely available on the net then this has led to the present situation. This was the subject of the topic as posted by you and my reply is addressing that issue. Before you ask yes I have visited the battlefield of Verdun twice and the Ossuary once.

Norman

I can't agree, criminals breaking into tombs, digging in graveyards and violating battlefield burials is nothing new. The visibility of human remains is also nothing new, . I don't believe the Ossuary was or is intended to be a place of anything but respect. Let the blame rest with the guilty, I just hope that they can be caught.

khaki

[4thGordons]

Just catching up with this after returning.

I was at the Ossuary with a group last Monday, first time I had been there for a long time - very sorry to hear about this.

I would second Gwyn's (Dragon) comments.

Chris

[iain mchenry]

If people who experienced the dreadful horrors of Verdun, if people who were bereaved by Verdun, if the French people decided in the early painful aftermath that the Ossuaire de Douaumont was how they wished to commemorate their losses, then who are we to say that it's inappropriate, or irreverent, or indecent? To claim it's any of those is culturally illiterate.

Some comments are verging on blaming the theft on the way the remains are displayed, which to my mind misses the point entirely.

Gwyn

Well said Gwyn.

[nigelcave]

As I nderstand it, the Ossuary at Verdun was built by the Church and to do this they raised money from all over the world. I do not know now if they receive and state assistance for its maintenance (I suspect they do, as I think that the recent restoration of the basilica at Notre Dame de Lorette was either state funded or considerably underwritten). The public display thing is common on the continent, or at least not unusual; in these cases it is meant as a reminder that we are all going to end up as dust - several sites have the inscription (in Latin) 'As you are now, so was I; as I am now so you will be'.

I imagine the thinking behind the ossuary was to shock at the cost of war. The Bishop of Verdun, who initiated the project, had his bones put in the charnel house as well. French army chaplains continued to gather bones (they might possibly still do so) from the battlefield of Verdun and the bones were then placed in the appropriate bay; they are both French and German bones.

To the original point; it is a disgrace and a sacrilege.

[healdav]

The Bishop of Verdun, who initiated the project, had his bones put in the charnel house as well. French army chaplains continued to gather bones (they might possibly still do so) from the battlefield of Verdun and the bones were then placed in the appropriate bay; they are both French and German bones.

To the original point; it is a disgrace and a sacrilege.

Bones are found on an almost daily basis. They say that is you dig in the ground anywhere around the battlefield you will find remains.

In fact, the foresters and Gendarmerie are quite used to finding holes where people have been prospecting for bones. There is a ready market (don't ask) apparently and thieves defy the draconian laws against it.

[bob lembke]

In fact, the foresters and Gendarmerie are quite used to finding holes where people have been prospecting for bones. There is a ready market (don't ask) apparently and thieves defy the draconian laws against it.

There was an odd little shop in a local tourist area; on the surface it dealt in (among other things) in military insignea and in Victorian "death jewelry"; for example the broaches and other jewelry woven from the hair of the deceased (and sometimes the living, in different eras) in England in the Victorian Era (my wife has collected a bit of it), but the shop had an "under the counter" trade in Irish "bog babies", naturally mummified bodies of newborn chucked into Irish bogs. People collect all sorts of things.

I have a bone from Verdun, but it is my father's, punched out of his left upper arm by a fragment from a "French 75".

Bob

[geraint]

We used to have ossuarys here in Britain during Catholic, pre Reformation times. Graveyards were frequently dug up and emptied over the centuries, with the skulls and longbones reburied in non-sacrosanct ground, or in a charnel house or pit or just burnt. I'm sure that archaeologist members can confirm that. About 30 years ago I worked as a volunteer on a dig in nearby Denbigh where the longbones of a large group of monks had been cleared from the Priory cemetery and reburied in a nearby field. Bones were just bones, the tired frame that once held a living spirit, but now decaying into dust and clay and of no spiritual value. How the Catholic church reconciled that fact with the miracelous gathering together of the bones for the Last Judgement - I'm not sure. The bones of saints and martyrs were different in that they actively worked miracles for the possesor, or scrived their souls or interfaced directly with Mary and Christ regarding the owner's soul and it's location in either hell, heaven or purgatory.

All very interesting stuff, and probably considered by 99.9% of this forum's membership as primitive fantasy. Still, that's how it is. The past is a strange and different country!

[ph0ebus]

I hope they catch the perps and require them to set things right again, above and beyond the punishment for their crime.

-Daniel

[Dragon]

. About 30 years ago I worked as a volunteer on a dig in nearby Denbigh where the longbones of a large group of monks had been cleared from the Priory cemetery and reburied in a nearby field. Bones were just bones, the tired frame that once held a living spirit, but now decaying into dust and clay

What did your team do with the remains you found? Just interested.

'the tired frame..etc .' lovely, lyrical

Gwyn

[geraint]

Hi Gwyn

Good question! They couldn't be reburied in the same field because a new primary school was to be built there. I think they reburied them in the original Priory field from which they'd been dug up about six hundred years prior to that (no pun intended). If I recall they had parts of skeletons amounting to about forty individuals. It was a rescue dig, and even I as a then history teacher and not an archaseologist thought the whole dig to be rushed. It was the Clwyd Powys Archaeological Trust I think, though it may have been an University dept commissioned by Cadw. Tempus fugit!

[crickhollow]

The different ways in which war dead are remembered reflects national cultural and religious traditions. For those who are interested, I wrote an article (published in Stand To! No.90, Dec2010/Jan2011) which contrasts and compares rituals of commemoration, with particular reference to Thiepval and Douaumont. The religious commemorative associations with human bones is pervasive in many, if not all, societies. It is only recently that Anglo-Saxon sensibilities are a little shocked to see bones on display.

C.

[depaor01]

There is a ready market (don't ask) apparently and thieves defy the draconian laws against it.

Indeed there is. The Auction Site We All Know And Love won't allow the sale of anything with a swastika on it (including innocuous items like Red Cross belt buckles, Berlin Olympics items), for fear of "causing offence". However they will freely allow the sale of human remains as long as they are "medically articulated" - meaning that all one has to do with a dug up skull is to screw on a couple of springs on the jaw and hey presto.

Nauseating stuff.

[ph0ebus]

Indeed there is. The Auction Site We All Know And Love won't allow the sale of anything with a swastika on it (including innocuous items like Red Cross belt buckles, Berlin Olympics items), for fear of "causing offence". However they will freely allow the sale of human remains as long as they are "medically articulated" - meaning that all one has to do with a dug up skull is to screw on a couple of springs on the jaw and hey presto.

Nauseating stuff.

I think the swastika ban only applies to items being sold that originate in Germany and are being sold by German folk. I see items with swastkkas regularly on eBay, just not from German sellers.

That said, you raise a good point, and it gets back to the heart of the manner. People would not steal bones to sell if there was no market, and sadly, there is. Until the market disappears, all you can do is tighten security and surveillance, and enforce the law.

Daniel

[Guest exuser1]

When visiting a house to buy in France about 10 years ago we were escorted around a presbetry that had been vacated some time previous ,on being shown the huge double garage ,we were confronted by the sight of the remains of a very recent Black Mass ! the whole works ,a very embarrased agent mumbled about local tradations ,country folk ect ,as they use to say we made our excuses and left , weather these bones have been stolen because they were from someone killed as a warrior ect and have that extra something ? who can say ,but some years ago at the site of Isandwana the remains of soliders killed in 1879 were being removed as these were white warriors killed by Zulu and had extra power , this was well documented about 15 years ago , on the display of bones ect in the UK St Brides Church off Fleet St has a huge crypt with the remains of Londoners from 200+ years , also the church in Hythe has thousands to visit which is also on the Hythe Town Tourist Trail ! so its not just a Continental Europe thing or pre Reformation idea .

On the sale of remains and display i rember in the 1960s a well known Military Antiques Auction house sold a Human Skull ,converted in to a cigar box complete with silver mounts explaining from Lucknow ,skull of a mutineer and picked up by a major in the East India Company , times and taste change ?

On the orginal thread i hope the criminalls are caught and prosacuted for a dispicable and cowardly act .

[healdav]

I think the swastika ban only applies to items being sold that originate in Germany and are being sold by German folk. I see items with swastkkas regularly on eBay, just not from German sellers.

Daniel

This would be so. It is completely illegal in Germany to display the swastika. In bookshops you will see that any book having a swastika on the cover has it covered up.

[crickhollow]

On a different but related note: I wonder what WFA members make of the Damien Hirst diamond encrusted skull?

This is soon to be put on display at the Tate Modern:

'Tate said the skull, appearing for the first time in a UK public gallery, may be viewed "alternatively as a glorious, devotional, defiant or provocative gesture in the face of death itself".The work, which will be housed in a viewing room in the east end of the Turbine Hall, was sold to an investment group in 2007 with Hirst retaining part-ownership.

He has described For the Love of God, the platinum cast of a 35-year-old 18th century European man covered in 8,601 jewels, as an "uplifting" piece that "takes your breath away".'

[Dragon]

On a different but related note: I wonder what WFA members make of the Damien Hirst diamond encrusted skull?

Why only WFA members? Some of us don't belong to it. Do they have a privileged insight into death and cranial- or death-derived art?

Gwyn

[Dragon]

Well said Gwyn.

Thank you, Ian and before that 4th Gordons.

I was wondering what the reaction would have been if someone had said that metal thieves only steal brass from war memorials because communities put brass in war memorials in the first place.

Gwyn

[ph0ebus]

Clearly a little pruning has gone on here...?

The piece above is a cast of a skull, so where's the problem? You can buy casts of skulls in every Halloween shop every fall.

Daniel

[crickhollow]

Why only WFA members? Some of us don't belong to it. Do they have a privileged insight into death and cranial- or death-derived art?

Gwyn

OK, I meant GWF members. I just asked the question, not suggesting anyone has a 'privileged insight'. Some of the earlier comments in this thread seemed to suggest that placing human remains on view was perhaps distasteful. The illustration I posted shows how human remains are used and interpreted in many different ways. The ossuary such at Douaumont is one of many ways in which society remembers its dead.

[ph0ebus]

OK, I meant GWF members. I just asked the question, not suggesting anyone has a 'privileged insight'. Some of the earlier comments in this thread seemed to suggest that placing human remains on view was perhaps distasteful. The illustration I posted shows how human remains are used and interpreted in many different ways. The ossuary such at Douaumont is one of many ways in which society remembers its dead.

I am wondering if we should not start a separate thread for people to express their opinions on the display of the dead, so as to keep this thread more on point to its original purpose?

I am also curious if there is any update re: the damage done being repaired or any leads on those responsible?

-Daniel