How can we tell the story of a day that is both decisive and terrible in the history of France? Annick Cojean is a senior reporter for the newspaper Le Monde. Deeply linked to the history of Normandy landing on June 6, 1944, she interviewed the various actors. In “C’est la vie”, she returns to the “longest day”.
Reconstruct Landing Day June 6, 1944
Annick Cojean’s mother was 13 years old at the time of the Landings. Over the years, this historic event had become a true family legend, to the point that Annick has always felt a special connection with this episode of history.
It was in 1994, during the preparations for the celebration of 50th anniversary of the Allied landings in Normandy that Annick wants to look more closely at the subject. She was then a young journalist and began to meet American veteranswho tell him about this day “with incredible precision”.
After all these meetings, she proposed to the director of the newspaper Le Monde to recount this day of June 6, 1944 hour by hourwith the different actors of this historic day : a resistance fighter from the Norman maquis, the loud-mouthed chaplain of the Kieffer commando, the soldiers of the different armies… Annick gives the floor to these men, aged around twenty at the time, who lived in Normandy “the craziest, most tragic hours of their lives”.
Annick Cojean publishes We were there – 18 veterans recount hour by hour about D-Day published by Grasset.
The voices of Commando Kieffer Listen later
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