(Image source: WikiCommons)
“D-Day’s 75th anniversary will represent the last large-scale gathering of living soldiers, sailors and airmen who took part in the fight for Europe.”
LAST WEEK’S commemorations of the anniversary of D-Day may now be over, but work is well underway for next year’s landmark 75th anniversary of the Normandy Invasion.
Already, an international social media campaign has kicked off to help mark the historic milestone. It’s called #EuropeRemembers.
Organized by the Liberation Route Europe, a Netherlands-based not-for-profit organization that links various Second World War battlefield commissions, landmarks, museums and tour operators, #EuropeRemembers salutes the diamond jubilee of not just Operation Overlord, but all of the events of the war’s final climactic year — from D-Day and the liberation of Paris to Operation Market Garden and the Battle of the Bulge. The campaign will run through 2020.
“This is an occasion to honour all of those who paid the high price of their life for our freedom,” said Remi Praud, managing director of the Liberation Route Europe. “We all have a responsibility toward the young generations to never forget the lessons of the past for today and tomorrow.”
Praud describes the Liberation Route as a “remembrance trail” that brings together the various landmarks of the Allied crusade to free Western Europe from Nazi occupation.
Established in 2008, the organization includes more than 250 partners and 400 historic sites in 11 countries.
Among its members are America’s National World War II Museum, France’s Region Normandie, the Utah Beach Museum, Canada’s Juno Beach Centre, the Bastogne War Museum, the Netherland’s Raboud University Nijmegen, and the Peenemünde Museum in Germany, among others.
D-Day 75, along with the other anniversaries in 2019 and 2020, will represent the last full-scale gathering of surviving veterans who took part in the fight for Europe.
The Liberation Route hopes #EuropeRemembers will bring as many as 25 million visitors to the various historic sites over the next two years.
The organization will also launch a content-rich online portal and digital app to support the campaign.
For updates or to find out more, follow the Liberation Route Europe on Facebook or Twitter.
SIDEBAR:
Liberation Route Europe Hosts MHN in Normandy
MilitaryHistoryNow.com had the opportunity to take in the sites and sounds of last week’s 74th D-Day commemorations as guests of the Liberation Route Europe. Here’s some of what we saw:
