Gérald ELLEN
& Julie CALBERG ELLEN
Lion-sur-mer & Luc-sur-mer
The duty of remembrance passed down through familial love
My name is Gérald Ellen. I was born in 1948, in the month of May, on 12 May 48, after the end of the war. And I was born in London.
My father didn't live through the occupation because he was in England. And England, apart from Jersey, was not occupied by the Germans.
My father arrived in France on 7 June. He landed between Lion-sur-Mer and Luc-sur-Mer.
He spoke very little about the war: he was a pacifist.
My father was brought up in a very strict environment, where he wasn't allowed to sing on Sundays. And he came into the war as a pacifist.
He had fought in the war in Libya, under Montgomery's command. Then he landed in Sicily. So the Normandy landing was his 3rd.
The battle dress of British soldier Arthur Ellen
He landed here on 7 June and he was a radio operator. So he had a radio with him, and that's why he landed on the bonnet of a lorry, without getting wet and without firing a single shot.
He didn't stay on the beach, they went straight back inland, and I wonder if he wasn't at Camp Hillman?
Then they crossed the Seine to Le Havre, Le Havre, which had not yet been liberated.
He was camped at Criquetot L'Esneval, and that's where he met my mother.
So that day they liberated Goderville - Mum was from Goderville - and my grandfather invited three British soldiers for a drink to celebrate the liberation of Goderville.
And one of the three was my father. And then, straight away, he met Mum and it must have been love at first sight!
I think they stayed at Goderville for a week or ten days. After that, they didn't see each other for a year, but for a year they wrote to each other every day.
And after that, the 51st Highland Division went back up to Flanders, Belgium, the Netherlands, where they liberated a camp. The only concentration camp in the Netherlands was at Vught. So they liberated that camp.
And then they went up to Hamburg and I think he was demobilized in Hamburg.
All this time, Mum was writing her daily letters to my father, although she didn't necessarily receive any every day.
At the end of the war, they met again. And they got engaged.
Mum took the first passenger boat to Dieppe, to visit her English in-laws or future in-laws.
There they organised the wedding, which took place in Goderville in 1946.
And these stories have upset me a little since I came here I think, or since the loss of my father. Since his death, we've been trying to revive the memory of our parents.
It's part of my personality, part of me. I was born into it, so I think it's important to know where you come from and where you're going.
Arthur Ellen’s Libération journey
I would also like to say a few words about the transmission of values.
The values of integrity that my father passed on to us. I try to pass them on to my children too.
My grandfather didn't talk much about the war. My grandmother didn't talk much either. In fact, they kept a lot of things about that period and their history a secret.
Cette histoire d’amour-là a été très forte, dans la famille. C’était vraiment un pilier. Et en plus, c’était une histoire d’amour multiculturelle parce qu’il y avait des nationalités différentes, des religions différentes.
He wrote about his love for his grandchildren. That way of telling people you love them.
And Dad has it too: he says ‘I love you’ a lot more than his mother said, than my mother said. And that's something I try to do myself with my children.
As someone who had lived through abominable things, he had retained the fact that what was important was to say that we loved each other.
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