A Borderland Struggle

The province of Alsace is nestled between the Vosges mountain range and the Rhine River.  The land is flat enough for farmland but also has mountain resources such as timber and stone.  Because of this placement and fertility, Alsace has been ruled by several different governments through the centuries.  Celts and Romans have lived here but most recently this area has repeatedly passed between the French and Germans.  The French felt that the natural border between the countries should be the Rhine River.  The Germans thought that stopping at the Vosges Mountains made more sense. 
In recent history, the people in Alsace endured governmental changes several times.  The Germans owned Alsace from 1871 through 1918 and then again during World War II from 1940 through 1944.  The Alsatians didn't have a choice in the matter.  They were ruled by whichever government was stronger at the time.  Tough luck that you currently speak French, now you have to learn German... or the other way around.  Strasbourg had been a German city for fifty years when all of a sudden it was owned by France again.  How many people had been born as Germans but then had to identify themselves as French?  These changes had to be shocks to the system.

The takeovers didn't happen as a friendly sharing of property lines.  It wasn't like one country said, "Here, use the Rhine River valley for a few years then when you are done with it drop back off at my place."  This land was torn apart by war, then afterwards the people were forced to change their language, their loyalties, and their identity.  These wars weren't between countries an ocean apart.  These wars were fought by soldiers who might have lived five miles from one another.  They might have traded goods at the same markets, passed each other in their fields, or eaten at the same pubs together.  Some of these soldiers might have been neighbors, friends, cousins, or even brothers.  It was highly likely that a family could have members on both sides of the Rhine and therefore on both sides of the conflict. 

In the Place de la Republique there is a statue of a woman holding two dying men.  This statue symbolizes a mother who has lost her two sons.  One son was fighting on the side of the French while the other son was a German soldier  For this mother it didn't matter which side won because ultimately she lost everything anyway.

In the spring, summer, or autumn when the Place de la Republique is colorful with flowers and noisy with sounds of laughing children it is easy to overlook this statue.  But when the winter has stripped all the distractions away, the mourning mother becomes the focal point.  This statue is made of stone, but it represents flesh and blood.  There were real people who fought, struggled, and possibly gave their lives.  They walked this ground.  They lived their daily lives right here, where I am, just at a different time.

I am taking a moment to pause and think about the ordinary Alsatian men and women whose lives were disrupted again and again just because they lived on a piece of land that governments struggled over.  Their lives were changed not for some grand cause but rather for imaginary borders.  I am sure that the regular people in this area didn't care that much about the black lines on a map that define countries.  They just wanted to live their lives in peace.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alsace