Gratitude on display

PAUL BUTLER, HOST: Today is Thursday, August 22nd. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day. Good morning. I’m Paul Butler.

MYRNA BROWN, HOST: And I’m Myrna Brown. Coming next on The World and Everything in It: honoring D-Day veterans.

On June 6th, 1944— 80 years ago—the largest amphibious invasion in history, nearly 133-thousand allied troops stormed the beaches of Normandy, France amid World War II.

More than two months later … the forces began a 6-day battle known as the liberation of Paris. August 25th, 1944, Paris declared victory over the Nazis.

BUTLER: Each year, a family-owned French bakery makes a point to honor the veterans who served in those battles by providing them space to gather and reminisce together on D-Day.

WORLD reporter Maria Baer visited the bakery in June and brings us this report.

MARIA BAER: Every waitress at La Chatelaine Bakery and Bistro wears the same uniform: a striped shirt, navy slacks or skirt, and a handkerchief in her hair. Tres chic.

AUDIO: Bon Appetit, ladies… Bon Appetit! [French music]

La Chatelaine is popular with locals here in Columbus, Ohio. But every year on June 6th, the restaurant’s original location closes after lunch. At 5 p.m., the veterans start showing up.

AUDIO: Good evening, it’s my pleasure to be here representing our post in Westerville, American Legion 171…

This year is the 80th anniversary of D-Day, and La Chatelaine is doing what they’ve done every June since the restaurant opened in 1991: hosting military veterans and their families for a private party, including a lavish French buffet dinner at no cost.

AUDIO: At ease everybody! (Whistles)... Airborne! (Airborne!) All the way! (Every day!)

La Chatelaine’s D-Day celebration traces back to the owners—Stan and Gigi Wielezynski. They opened the restaurant after emigrating to the U.S. in the 1980s. Stan’s mother had lived under the Nazi occupation in France. Gigi’s mother was a child living in Belgium then.

Their daughter, Charlotte Harden, runs the restaurant now. In her trademark French stripes, Charlotte is elegant and energetic. She remembers her grandmother’s stories of the liberation of Belgium in 1944.

CHARLOTTE: She remembers the troops coming in through the streets on their tanks, and that’s the first time she ever had chewing gum, so she always assumed Americans talked that way. She always remembered he handed her an orange and a piece of gum from the tank.

By the time the Allied forces stormed the Normandy beaches on June 6th, 1944, the Nazis had occupied France for four years. The Allies came by the air and the sea, suffering heavy casualties as they advanced slowly up the coastal cliffs of northern France. Over the next several weeks, the troops liberated nearby towns, one by one.

It was the beginning of the end of World War II.

Charlotte said her family always felt a deep debt of gratitude for the troops who freed their countrymen, and for the freedom they found in America.

That’s why they started the parties.

At first, the Wielezynskis invited only World War II vets. They didn’t really advertise it, but the invitations spread, like gossip, through the close-knit veteran community.

CHARLOTTE: We had a lot of vets that would bring their stuff that they'd gotten, a picture, or their medals…

In the early years when the parties were small, they kept the rest of La Chatelaine open to the public at the same time. But that caused some confusion, especially the year one vet, who’d escaped German captivity, wanted to show off the Nazi flag he’d swiped upon his escape.

CHARLOTTE: The first thing he would do is he would hang the Nazi flag from the corner, you know there’s the hutch, I mean the thing was massive, at least half this wall. And customers who didn’t know it was D-Day…

One year, Charlotte and her family met Marion Gray, an Army medic who stormed Omaha Beach in the first wave of the D-Day offensive. He’d never been back to Normandy. Now 78, he was working at Wal-Mart.

CHARLOTTE: My parents were like that’s it, we can’t pay a trip for everyone, but we’re gonna pay a trip for him in honor of everyone.

The story of the Wielezynskys bringing Gray to Normandy was covered in local newspapers back in Ohio, and La Chatelaine’s D-Day celebrations grew. News reporters and politicians started showing up. But the Greatest Generation was getting smaller. The surviving vets told Charlotte to widen the list of invitees.

CHARLOTTE: So they told us, don’t stop. Even if no more of us are here, please, don’t stop. The Vietnam, and obviously Korea… continue with them. And continue teaching the younger generation what we did.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs estimates there are roughly 115-thousand American veterans of World War II still living — that’s fewer than one percent. My grandfather, who fought in Japan and survived to have five children, 17 grandchildren, and 35 great-grandchildren, died just last year. Marion Gray died in 2015, but his family are here at La Chatelaine’s party this year.

So are veterans from the wars in Vietnam, Korea, and Afghanistan.

And so are three handsome (if a bit wobbly) World War II vets. Al Williamson and Carl Strout are 98. Bob McLaughlin is 99. They’re treated like celebrities here.

Before Charlotte releases everyone to the buffet, a member of the local chapter of the 82nd Airborne Division Association leads the group in a song they apparently all know: it’s a macabre revision of The Battle Hymn of the Republic:

SINGING: He thought about the medics, and he wondered what they’d find, and he ain’t gonna jump no more. 

After dinner around crowded tables, the group gathers outside, where local collectors of military memorabilia have parked two World War II-era army jeeps. Charlotte calls for a picture.

AUDIO: [Beeping horn of Jeep]

Someone lifts 98-year-old Carl Strout into one of the jeeps’ driver’s seat.

AUDIO: Yayyy!

Charlotte knows these heroes of the Second World War – men she calls her “buddies” — might not make it to La Chatelaine’s D-Day party next year. But she’s promised to keep hosting them for all the men and women of the military, who make it possible for families like hers to live free and bake pastry.

CHARLOTTE: What does it mean to our family? It’s like something in your gut.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Maria Baer.

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