Les Fleurs de la Memoire, a Memorial Day story.

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High on a bluff above Omaha Beach, the American cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer is a place of stunning beauty and tranquillity. Rising from thick, manicured grass, rows of white crosses and Stars of David face westward, toward America.

It's hard to imagine that 64 years ago, war raged here. But there are the 10,000 graves to prove it.

Among them is the uncle of a North Carolina NPR listener, Jennie Malcolm. Walter Malcolm was killed near here, two month after D-Day. Last summer, while investigating her uncle's death, Jennie Malcolm came across the French volunteer organization Les Fleurs de la Memoire, or Flowers of Memory.

Malcolm said she mustered up her best French and asked if flowers could be placed on her uncle's grave. Two months later she received a photo of his grave in the mail.



(more at the link)

--NPR