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This is my grandfather, who was born on this day in 1888 in Paris. I was 17 when he died, at age 94, so I was lucky enough to know him well. [A THREAD]
![This is my grandfather, who was born on this day in 1888 in Paris. I was 17 when he died, at age 94, so I was lucky enough to know him well. [A THREAD]](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EtQJa3dUcAAPfx_.jpg "This is my grandfather, who was born on this day in 1888 in Paris. I was 17 when he died, at age 94, so I was lucky enough to know him well. [A THREAD]")
My grandfather survived World War I (despite being shot and contracting the 1918 flu). He suffered the death of a daughter when she was 8. And he was imprisoned by Nazis. I’ll always remember him as a peaceful man with a gentle smile.
His humanity comes through in the many photos he took during World War I. The war was long ago, and yet it’s not so distant. I first saw these images a half-century ago. At that time, a half-century had passed since the end of the war.
Here are some of his pictures.
Here are some of his pictures.
Shopkeepers stand amid the ruins of the village of Cormicy, in the Marne department, in 1915.
Soldiers break for a meal on the Western Front.
Civilians gather at a “cuisine roulante” (a rolling kitchen).
The remains of German soldiers lie on a battlefield; the bodies of French soldiers fill a destroyed church.
The body of a cow lies in front of a bombed-out building in Fleury. The remains of the village are today within a so-called Red Zone, deemed uninhabitable.
A soldier takes a nap in a church.
Lieutenant Geus mans a machine gun. He was, my grandfather wrote, “gifted with a strong will.”
An Army doctor takes notes in a field.
Soldiers enjoy a day off—Bastille Day, 1915—by jousting on a canal.
The last civilians flee Verdun on February 25, 1916. The Battle of Verdun lasted for 302 days, claiming the lives of 300,000 soldiers. I am here only because my grandfather survived it.
