Lomography

War memorial of Nice
written by vicuna on October 6th, 2008 , 2 comments (1 vote)

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You can find war memorials everywhere in France, every city or village has their own and they were mostly built after the WW1, as young people from everywhere in France died during this terrible war or collective massacre (over 1,5 million french victims and over 9 million victims in all…!)

So, in the 20’s, the 3rd French Republic, decided that every municipality had to built a monument to remember. You can find them in very different styles, and some (but very few) are explicitly pacifist ones. The war memorial of Nice is a really huge and impressing one and was built from 1924 to 1928. It was decided to be put in a place where nobody can miss it, and so it was built in the rock of the Old city hill, in front of the sea and the port. It’s a massive construction of 32 meter high, with columns and a bit in a temple style to remember the memory of the 4000 people of Nice who died during the war.

Afterward, it was also used to write on this monument the names of the people of Nice victims of the 2nd world war and the decolonization wars in Indochina (1945-1954) and Algeria (1954-1962).

Nowadays, every 11th November (for the 1st WW) and 8th May, a ceremony is held honoring their memory (like everywhere else in France). To find the monument, it’s very easy, go to the port (following the “Promenade Des Anglais” until “Rauba Capeu”) and you can’t miss it…

“Here you can learn more”:http://www.nice.fr/mairie_nice_2188.html