(Saint-Laurent-sur-Mer) On Omaha Beach, one of the most famous D-Day beaches, an old Mercedes 170V, covered with symbols of the French resistance, broadcasts Edith Piaf. Inside, surprise: they are Germans who are keen on historical reconstruction.

Like them, many people came, sometimes with their families, to don the military uniform of soldiers who landed in Normandy on June 6, 1944 or who participated in the deadly battles of Operation Overlord.

“I always put this car in the colors of the F. F. I”, the French Forces of the Interior, one of the main French resistance movements during the Second World War, says Siegfried Oberst, who came from Bochum, more than 750 km away. ‘Omaha Beach.

Passionate about historical reconstruction, the sixty-year-old found the vehicle in a barn and set about restoring it.

“I will never wear a Nazi uniform […] I want to remember that there was the French resistance and resistant Germans,” he insists to AFP.  

Used by the Wehrmacht, the old Mercedes has been driving since at least 1945 and is registered as a “historic vehicle”. On his roof, Siegfried has installed, pell-mell, a gramophone, a portrait of Jesus, period suitcases.

“The trip lasted more than a day,” says one of his friends in the back seat. “It was very tiring but it was unimaginable not to be there for the 80th anniversary” of the Landing.

For Nicolas Astruc, who came as a family with his parents and brothers, it was also “impossible” not to celebrate this date.

At the wheel of a Dodge, an American army Jeep which was used to transport senior officers and carry out reconnaissance missions, the young 33-year-old Frenchman, dressed in GI military uniform, scans the Bay of Seine. .

The American soldiers who died on June 6, 1944 “were not even my age, they left their lives on this sand, a few steps from where I am,” says the man who is “in real life” a firefighter at the Paris Orly airport.

His parents passed on the historical re-enactment “virus” to him from a very young age: at three years old, he was already traveling this same beach in a vintage vehicle on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the D-Day landings.

“Buying my personal Dodge […] it takes a lot of money and passion, and time too,” he confides, while activating the vehicle’s siren.

But it’s not a game. “I find out a lot in advance,” he emphasizes. “We really try to commemorate what they (the soldiers, Editor’s note) did for us. »

For Santos Morondo too, the historical reconstruction is “a serious business” which serves the duty of memory.

 » The truth is that when you do that, you step into a role and you see the places, the story, not from the side of the spectator, outside of everything, but as if you were part of this moment of history that you try to reconstruct,” says the 49-year-old Spaniard, who came from Bilbao.

Thanks to specialized stores, Santos managed to reconstruct all the paraphernalia of an American G.I. preparing to disembark on the beaches of Normandy.

But the preparation doesn’t stop there.

 “You have to read about this time, about the place, about the number of deaths, and read the correspondence from soldiers the day before D-Day, their fear,” he explains.

“Of course, you will never be able to feel what they felt, but you will succeed in understanding History.”

The computer developer also likes to participate in historical reconstructions of other eras.  

And sometimes it’s easier than putting on a G.I. uniform, he notes.

 » For the oldest reconstructions, such as the Roman era, we rely on mosaics, paintings, sculptures. But often the colors are lost and therefore we have more freedom to invent. “ 

 “For the Second World War, everything is described in detail, there are even photos,” so there’s no room for “error,” he says with a smile.

 » But each period has its grace. “