This blog concludes the series about the events of D-Day – and in particular that most of us see D Day as the event that ended World War 2 in Europe– but it was in fact only the beginning of the end.

There were still fierce battles to fight with an immense loss of life (on both sides) and it took almost another year to end the war in Europe, when the German army surrendered on 8 May 1945 – now commemorated as ‘Victory in Europe’ or VE day.

The museum in Caen features what price was paid for liberation by everyday folk. Towns and villages were utterly destroyed, including about 70% of Caen itself. While there was joy at being liberated, the long road to rebuild, recover and reconcile was a long and hard one.

This museum is very comprehensive – it covers everything about World War 2 (including a very harrowing section about the Holocaust) as well as what happened afterwards which people often forget.

The Marshall plan to reconstruct Europe and the carving up of Berlin amongst the Allies.

There is also a very good section about the Cold War, the creation of East and West Germany and, of course, the building of the Berlin Wall.

It was also at this museum that we learned that 6 June 1944 was a Tuesday.

Top tips:

• Plan to spend a good few hours at this museum – it is very comprehensive. We were there for over 3 hours.
• Don’t miss the German Bunker and the Memorial gardens outside.
• The gift shop is enormous and the museum café has very good cookies 😊

You can find out more about the Caen museum here

…..and if you can figure out what this statue is all about, please let us know!

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