Hi again gruezi,
Just thought I would throw some additional information on Normandy into the hat, this tour route and its information its taken from a previous post of mine and nicked from a pamphlet I picked up on my many visits to Normandy.We have covered a lot of this tour and find it really useful to do additional research prior to visiting.

"The WW11 sites in Normandy are excellent places to visit. I think the French have spent a couple of generations looking after these places and the current generation probably see things as quite lucrative, therefore access is easy and routes are available to follow which allow the visitor to really explore what happened in WW2.

Bayeux is in my opinion the best place to have as a base. The town is quite pleasant was not destroyed.

There are eight signposted routes, looking at different phases of the fighting from the landings, to battles in the Bocage, to the final breakouts. The eight routes have different names, and are clearly signed . At major points along these routes are multi-lingual information totems which tell you the history behind the location you are visiting. It is well worth following these routes.
They will take you to the well known places and also the lesser visited places too.

The routes are identified by sword shaped signs and totem poles scattered around the areas.
"Normandy is a veritable open air museum; the historical area of the battle of Normandy brings together all museums and places of interest and remembrance connected to D Day and the ensuing offensive in the three departments of Calvados Manche and Orne.

There are 8 itineraries in chronicle sequence clearly signposted
?Normandie Terre-Liberté?
These routes enable the visitor to discover these history packed places and follow the unfolding of the huge battle on which the outcome of the Second World War depended.

These itineraries are as follows:

OVERLORD-L?ASSAUT (OVERLORD-THE ASSAULT)
This route is designed to help discover a great many places that marked 6th June 1944 in the Anglo-Canadian sector from the right bank of the Orne estuary to Bayeux.
You will first come across Pegasus Bridge at Bénouville, and then carry on along the coast following the signs.
Juno and Gold Landing beaches as far as Arromanches and the Longues Battery. Finally reaching Bayeux the first French town to be liberated.
Distance : 72km

D-DAY-LE CHOC (D-DAY-THE ONSLOUGHT)

Starting out from Bayeux, this route covers the entire length of the Omaha sector as far as Carentan. Taking in places like Colleville-Sur Mer and Points du Hoc, it gives an idea of the violence of the battle and the scale of the American casualties, which earned the Omaha beach the nickname ?Bloody Omaha?
The route then follows the hard fought advance of the American troops towards the town of Saint Lo badly scarred by intensive bombing raids and then through marshlands to Carentan where the link up took place with the troops coming ashore from Utah beach.
Distance :130km

OBJECTIF-UN PORT (OBJECTIVE-A PORT)
From Carentan to Cherbourg, this route lets you relive the parachute drop by the American 82nd and 101st airborne divisions around Saint-Mere Eglise and the landing on Utah beach at St Marie-du-mont. Moving on to Cherbourg, a vital base for importing the equipment and supplies required for the operation to succeed.
Distance :95km

L?AFFRONTEMENT (THE CONFRONTATION)
Starting out at Bénouville this completes the ?Overlord-L?assaut? route and follows the extremely difficult advance and consolidation of the beachhead by the British and Canadian troops. Between Caen, not liberated until 9th July, and Vire in early August, strategic towns like Caumont-L?eventé and St Martin des Besaces would be wiped out under Allied artillery fire and air attacks during ?operation bluecoat? (breakthrough in the Bocage) with the aim of supporting the American offensive in the West .
Distance :207km

COBRA-LA PERCEE (COBRA-THE BREAKOUT)
From Cherbourg to Avranches, you will follow the difficult progress of the Allied tanks under General Patton as far as the tremendous breakout at Avranches, which was not liberated until 31st July.
The towns of La Haye-du-puits, Périers and Coutances, and the battlefields of Mont Castre, la chapelle-en-juger and Roncey show with what extreme difficulty the fighting forces contrived to get around the German defences entrenched in Normandy.
Distance :174km

LA CONTRE ATTAQUE (THE COUNTER ATTACK)
The decisive phase of the Battle of Normandy took place with the wide sweep from Avranches to Mortain, where a deadly counteroffensive put paid to German hopes of halting the Allied advance.
From Mortain, the route then takes you to Alencon along either side of which Anglo-Canadian forces, to the North, and American forces to the South would gradually close the jaws on the German divisions.
Distance :209km

L?ENCERCLEMENT (THE ENCIRCLEMENT)
This itinary, from Alencon to L?aingle, gives an idea of how the trap designed to encircle the German forces closed in from the south. After following the progress of the French 2nd Armoured Div and American units moving northwards, you can discover the place where the bloody and decisive and decisive battles were fought for the Falaise-Chambois pocket. Before going on to L?aingle, whose liberation opened the road to the Seine for the Allied Armies.
Distance :162km

LE DENOUEMENT (THE OUTCOME)
This circuit covers the phase in which the Allied offensives converged towards what would be the most decisive battlefield of the whole Normandy campaign, the Falaise pocket. It follows in the footsteps of the British, Canadian and Polish Armies, heading due south in operation ?Totalize? to meet American and French (2nd Armoured) troops who had achieved a breakthrough towards Alencon and were moving North to encircle the German army as it withdrew following its failure at Mortain.
Distance: 128km"

I just read a review of a book that might interest her:

http://tinyurl.com/2v496p

I am reading now a real "eye-opener" book about the Jews escaping to Spain "mezuza in the madonna's foot" by Trudi Alexy.

Actually, it was recommended as reading about crypto-Jews and conversos, I think I'm 2/3 through and it's about the Holocaust.

In addition to the Resistance Museums in Amsterdam, there is one in Copenhagen.

"The sea route to Sweden also allowed the Danish Resistance to get out of the country over 7,000 of Denmark's 8,000 Jews. Because of this, Denmark had one of the lowest statistical casualty rates for Jews in the war." More at:

http://www.auschwitz.dk/Denmark.htm

If you visit Churchill's grave in the churchyard at Bladon (Woodstock), you will find two benches at his gravesite given by the Danes.

A large task for your daughter, gruezi, but it is hard to understand WW2 without the background of WWI. The historian John Keegan's "History of The First World War", available both illustrated and not, is considered one of the best. He also wrote a volume on WW2.

Niall Ferguson wrote "The War of the World: WW1, WW2 and the Decline of the West." It got mixed reviews and is probably too heavy for most of us. I've had it in my non-read but hope to pile for about a year.

Your daughter might onsider
"Nurses at the Front, Writing the Wounds of the Great War", edited by Margaret R. Higgonet, ISBN 1-55553-484-8). The material is from "The Forbidden Zone" (1929) by Mary Borden and The Backwash of War" (1916) by Ellen N. La Motte. Both were American nurses serving in French field hospitals. Ms La Motte's story "A Surgical Triumph" is the most moving story I have ever read. It never fails to bring tears to me as it does to everyone to whom I've lent the book.

Ms Higgonet is also co-editor of "Behind the Lines: Gender and the Two World Wars".

Two books I'd add:

Primo Levy's "The Reawakening" (also known as "The Truce"). This is an autobiographical survival tale, an account of Levy's circuitous journey home to Italy after being released from Auschwitz.

Another lesser known but excellent book (another survival tale) is "Jack and Rochelle," which is a narrative account of a Jewish couple's years in hiding and in the Polish resistance.

Faina - isn't that a great book? I first read it laying on the beach in Sitges, outside Barcelona, and it gave me an entirely new view of Spain.

Highly recommended for those interested in one of the many "sidebar" stories of the war, but also of some fascinating history still being revealed.

Just wanted to thank everyone who has posted since I last had time to check in here. All your suggestions are very much appreciated. I esp. appreciated the recommendation of the collection from the nurses who served on the front as I am a nurse.

I am looking forward to digesting and organizing all this information as well as ordering a number of books. I can see the topic is huge and the travel possibilities endless, so I need to better educate myself about both WWII and WWI (as noted above). I am a big reader but as I've mentioned my history background is really weak so perhaps this will become a classroom without walls for me.

My daughters and I were in Strasbourg this week, and visited the cathedral there. To the right of the altar is a memoriam to American soldiers who served in France. This provoked a long discussion with the girls about the US involvement in WWI and II and felt like perhaps the beginning of our journey...My youngest (the one who watched and enjoyed the Sarkozy speech) is just beginning to grasp that Europeans actually appreciated the US involvement in the war. It's a comforting realization for her since she gets a lot of flack about being an American from her European peers at school.

I gave my textbook-weary older daughter Schindler's List and Sophie's Choice for Christmas and she wrote me a nice note about how she is looking forward to our "history" travels. Timing is everything and so I think I will hold off on presenting her with too many books and such right now as she is overwhelmed with her school commitments. In the summer she is one who actually misses school, and so she'll be more enthused and attentive to what we see, do and read.

Thanks again, everyone. My homework assignment is to get going on organizing this information!! I am looking forward to it.

Hi
I would like to add a post script. Most of the people who responded including myself were concentrating on WW 2 from the American perspective and the Holocaust. Perhaps your daughts could read a book about the Warsaw Uprising. The uprising by the Poles caused the almost total destruction of Warsaw. What especially makes it interesting is the Stalin ordered the Red army not to assist the Poles but rather let them be slaughtered by the Nazis and then the Red Army entered warsaw after the destruction. This was probably an early indication of the Cold War to follow and the rise of communism in Central and Eastern Europe.

Being in Europe you probably missed the excellent Ken Burn documentary called "The War". Let me give a whole hearted recommendation since it in now out on DVD. He takes 4 US cities and follows the effect the war had on both the soldiers & citizens by interviewing the participants. It was difficult viewing seeing the once young & vibrant people opening up emotional scars that never healed, but it needs to be viewed.

This is not war in the abstract. It is something that will leave you weeping.

Just checking back in and wanted to say thanks for those that continue to post here. I had to put this project aside for several weeks but will be back on it shortly.

Thanks again and I promise to update on our plans as they materialize.

gruezi

To all those who so kindly and generously helped and encouraged us with our plans, here is an update.

So far, our plans for the summer include:

London to see the Imperial War Museum and the Churchill Museum and Cabinet War Rooms.

Normandy Beach to visit the Caen Peace Memorial Museum, Omaha Beach, Point du Hoc and the American Cemetery.

Dachau to visit the concentration camp and museum.

Berlin - still working on itinerary.

I think that is about all we'll have time for given our other commitments and the college applications my daughter has to start writing.

I spent a couple of hours compiling the many great suggestions here into a single file divided into 3 categories: To Visit, To Read and To View. You'll find the lists below. I apologize for any inaccuracies in transcribing all of this and for any typos etc.

Thanks again to everyone for your help on this project.

Shalom...

gruezi

<b>To Visit

Austria:</b>

Mauthausen Work Camp in northwestern Austria is well worth a visit. Well-preserved, it was termed the &quot;mother camp&quot; by the SS guards for all of Austria's 49 sub-camps.

<b>Belgium:</b>

In Belgium, you can find the American cemetery of Henri-Chapelle (http://www.abmc.gov/cemeteries/cemeteries/hc.php)

<b>Czech Republic:</b>

The Jewish quarter of Prague

Jewish quarter and related cemetery, synagogues and museums

Terezin (not too far from Prague.)

Lidice (near Prague), the town that was destroyed in an act of vengeance for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in 1942.

In Prague I followed the route where the assasination attempt (Reinhard Heydrich) took place, then visited the Church of St Cyril where the assasins hid out, then followed the story to Lidice where reprisals took place and capped it off with a visit to Terezine camp in Cz.

<b>Denmark:</b>

Resistance Museum in Copenhagen

Sidenote: If you visit Churchill's grave in the churchyard at Bladon (Woodstock), you will find two benches at his gravesite given by the Danes…

<b>England:</b>

London:

Imperial War Museum

Churchill Museum and Cabinet War Rooms

Peter &amp; Paul Church. It lists the American &amp; English dead in WWII.

The tour company ‘London Walks’ does a number of WWII related tours including “The Blitz” and “Westminster at War”.


<b>France:</b>

The Jewish quarter of Paris (Rue des Rosiers)

Normandy and D-Day beaches and cemeteries. Include St Mere Eglise.


Visit Oradour sur-Glane, a small French village south of Paris that was burned completely by the Nazis on 10 June, 1944, in retaliation for the French Resistance killing a Nazi officer. The burned-out ruins provide a stark lesson of the brutality.

<b>Germany:</b>

Nazi Documentation Center in Berchtesgaden, 'Germany
Topography of Terror' in Berlin, the former site of the SS/Gestapo-headquarters (http://www.topographie.de/en/index.htm)

House of the Wannsee Conference (http://www.ghwk.de/engl/kopfengl.htm)

German Resistance Memorial Site (http://www.gdw-berlin.de/ged/geschichte-e.php)

Ordensburg Vogelsang' near Aachen
(http://www.vogelsang-ip.de/), a place the future NS-elite was supposed to evolve from

Berlin:
New Jewish Museum, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, Topography of Terror; Sachsenhausen and Ravensbruck camps are nearby as is the Wannsee House. You may want to see the film Conspiracy - the dialogue follows the actual meeting and related documents verbatim. Kenneth Branaugh stars as Reinhard Heydrich.

Dachau:
(near Munich)

Nurnberg:
was the site of Hitler's Nazi rallies during the 1930's. The Reichsparteitag complex is a ruined shell that can be viewed as a grim reminder of the hideous Hitler era. There is also a small museum underneath the stands with memorabilia of that era.

Hitler’s Eagles Nest. It was a present to Hitler on his 50th birthday. He was claustrophobic &amp; afraid of heights so he never spent a night there. Get a glimpse of it in the DVD Band of Brothers.


<b>Holland</b>

Anne Frank Huis in Amsterdam

Amsterdam - Museum of Resistance

Amsterdam also has an excellent museum inside the synagogue.

Arnhem area for Operation Market Garden (A bridge too far)? you can see the John Frost bridge, and visit the museum at Oosterbeek.

Also in Holland is a fascinating museum in Overloon called Liberty Park http://tinyurl.com/26nsdd, and the US War cemetery in Margraten.

Holland to see the monuments and sites associated with Operation Market-Garden, the 1944 British-American airborne assault. There are lots of cemeteries and memorials, and that area is beautiful to visit. I recommend staying in Nijmegen, which is in easy reach of the other major towns involved in the campaign, Eindhoven and Arnhem. There is a superb British museum in Arnhem, and an American museum outside of Nijmegen.



<b>Hungary</b>

Budapest:

Dahony St. Synagogue and related Wallenberg Memorial. House of Terror Museum for WWII, Holocaust and Cold War interests.

<b>Israel:</b>

Jerusalem:

The Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial


<b>Italy:</b>

The Ghetto in Venice

The Jewish Museum in Cannareggio in Venice.

The little known concentration camp in Trieste.




<b>Poland</b>

Auschwitz (near Krakow)

Warsaw – Yiddish Theater and the Ghetto Uprising Walking Tour

Krakow:
Watch Schindler's List. (Rent the one with bonus features as survivor testimony is included.) Tour the Jewish District. A couple of memorials have been built at Plaschow. I think there are even some Schindler tours.


Next: To Read...

<b>To Read</b>

The Diary of Anne Frank

Night by Elie Wiesel

If This is a Man by Primo Levi
Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi
The Reawakening (also known as The Truce) by Primo Levi

Berlin Diary by Bill Shirer
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by Bill Shirer

Quel beau dimanche!, (French) by Jorge Semprun
The Long Voyage by Jorge Semprun

Suite Fran&ccedil;aise

Stones From the River by Ursula Hegi

By Bread Alone by Mel Mermelstein

&quot;Rescuing the Childen&quot; a holocust memoir by Vivette Samual, who was social worker at the time in France to save these Jewish children.

&quot;I Never saw nother Butterfly.&quot;children's drawings and poems from Terez&iacute;n Concentration Camp.

The Oppermanns: a novel by Lion Feuchtwanger

Between Dignity and Despair Jewish life in Nazi Germany by Marion A. Kaplan

War &amp; Genocide A Concise History of the Holocaust by Doris L. Bergen

The Holocaust (Problems in European Civilization Series) by Donald L. Niewyk

Memories, Dreams, Reflections by C.G. Jung

Ordinary Men Reserve Police Battalion 101

Final Solution in Poland by Christopher R. Browning

Europe by Norman Davies

The Painted Bird

Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl's

King Rat by James Clavell, a novel set in a Japanese POW camp.

Empire of the Sun by J G Ballard, a novel based on his own experiences as a child in a Japanese civilian internment camp.

Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives by Alan Bullock

Churchill: A Life by Martin Gilbert

Roosevelt: The Lion and the Fox 1882-1940 by James MacGregor Burns
Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom: 1940-1945 by James MacGregor Burns

LIFE: World War II: History's Greatest Conflict in Pictures
by Richard B. Stolley

The Life and Times of Reinhard Heydrich
The Assassination of Reinhard Heydrich

Eva's Cousin by S. Knauss

Holocaust Journey by Martin Gilbert

I Will Bear Witness 1942-1945: A Diary of the Nazi Years by Victor Klemperer

Destined to Witness... Growing Up Black in Nazi Germany by Hans J.
Massaquoi

Jan Morris on the subject: &quot;Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere.'

The World Must Know by Michael Berenbaum

The Wall by John Hersey, a novel about the Warsaw ghetto.

Band of Brothers by Ambrose
D-Day by Ambrose

Curahee by Burgett
Seven Roads to Hell by Burgett

The Seventh Well by Fred Wander

Mezuza in the Madonna's Foot by Trudi Alexy, about the Jews escaping to Spain

John Keegan's &quot;History of The First World War&quot; and on WWII

Is Paris Burning? tells the story of the liberation of Paris in August, 1944.

A Bridge Too Far continues the march to Germany in late 1944.

1933-45 diaries of the Jewish writer Victor Klemperer (cousin to the famous conductor Otto Klemperer), about the gradually changing everyday life of a Jew in Germany.

Albert Speer, the 'good nazi' who might have been the successor to Hitler. There are several biographies about him, of which I haven't read but the one by German historian Joachim Fest, who paints a very probable picture of the NS-elite as a bunch of self-concerned intriguers, constantly rivaling for Hitler's benevolence.


&quot;Nurses at the Front, Writing the Wounds of the Great War&quot;, edited by Margaret R. Higgonet, ISBN 1-55553-484-8). The material is from &quot;The Forbidden Zone&quot; (1929) by Mary Borden and The Backwash of War&quot; (1916) by Ellen N. La Motte. Both were American nurses serving in French field hospitals. Ms La Motte's story &quot;A Surgical Triumph&quot; is the most moving story I have ever read. It never fails to bring tears to me as it does to everyone to whom I've lent the book. Ms Higgonet is also co-editor of &quot;Behind the Lines: Gender and the Two World Wars&quot;

Jack and Rochelle - a narrative account of a Jewish couple's years in hiding and in the Polish resistance.

<b>To View</b>

Sophie Scholl: the Final Days

Schindler's List

Soldier of Orange Paul Verhoeven's masterpiece about the war in Holland.

Sunshine (1999) – shows history of Jewish family for three generations in Hungary, pre-WWI through the Cold War.

Katy&ntilde;

Triumph Of The Will by Leni Riefenstahl

Shoah by Lanzmann (Get the much less expensive Korean version)

Casablanca

Victory at Sea

Downfall

Black Book

Life is Beautiful

Au Revoir les Enfants

The Pianist

&quot;Paradise Road,&quot; fictional, but based on a true story about women who form a choral group at a Japanese prison camp during WWII.

The Lost Children of Berlin

The Grey Zone

Out of the Ashes

Survivors of the Holocaust by Stephen Spielberg

Jacob the Liar (there are two; I've see the one with Robin Williams)

Band of Brothers (an American Army point of view)

Hangmen Also Die (by Fritz Lang) about the Heydrich assassination

Popiol i diament ('Ash and diamant'), a film from Poland by Andrzej Wajda (there should be an English translation)

A Foreign Affair by Billy Wilder (for some post-war impressions)

The Third Man

The Last Act by Georg Pabst

Chaplin's 'The Great Dictator', though it's fictional, still fits as a very accurate portrait of Hitler

A Love To Hide (&quot;Un amour &agrave; taire&quot;) [2005] To better understand the fate of homosexuals under Nazi rule

Battleground with Van Johnson - made in 1948 and received an Oscar. The story centers around the Battle of the Bulge. It is a realistic look at war &amp; the army life.

The Great Raid - based on the book Ghost Soldiers by Hampton Sides. Tells of the liberation of Americans from a Japanese death camp in the Philippines.

Ken Burn documentary &quot;The War&quot;

That's all for now. I hope someone else finds a use for this wonderful information provided by our fellow Fodorites.

thanks!

gruezi

bookmarking!!!!!!!

Hi Dawn,

I was hoping to get your attention about this information!

I'm glad you found it.

gruezi

Bookmarking

gruezi, What great lists you have compiled. I'm happy that you used some of my suggestions. (Sometimes I feel like I never offer much help here :)

I'm sure this compilation of sites, books and movies will provide help for many people now and in the future.

Please keep posting and let us know your plans. What a wonderful trip you are planning!

For arranging your Berlin itinerary, you may find this information on Jewish life and history helpful:
http://tinyurl.com/6k4j34

If you have time for a day trip, the battlefield of the Seelow Heights is just some 80km East of Berlin.
http://tinyurl.com/lmhrv