A Priest Called Saunier

In 1852 a boy called Francois Berenger Saunier was born in a small hill top village called Montazels in the foothills of the Pyrenees. He died in 1917 across the valley from Montazels in a similar poor village called Rennes le Chateau. At the age of 32 after spending several years being educated in a seminary at Limoux and then a similar establishment in Carcasonne, he became the priest at the church in Rennes le Chateau.

On his death in 1917 he left behind him a housekeeper who had been his companion for many years, debts and a mystery. Several writers have since eared a very good living by writing books about the priest and the church and village. Perhaps the best known is Dan Brown and the Da Vinci Code, and prior to him, Lincoln, Baigent and Leigh with The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail. Both are well written and captivating novels and rightly deserve the acclaim awarded to their authors. But they are not a view of the history of those times, that place and that priest. If you are interested enough to delve a little deeper into the history of the two books then wikipedia has a good entry about the whole subject.

I became interested in the subject back in the early 1980s and first visited the village of Rennes le Chateau in 1992 when I met the son in law of the former owner of the Presbytery and museum in the village. It was a very interesting meeting and gave me leads into one or two organisations in the area who concern themselves with the history of the area and Saunier himself.

If one reads the Holy Blood and the Holy Grail one is lead to believe that Saunier found a secret which the Catholic Church tried hard to bury as it was so earth shaking that it would destroy the foundation of the church itself. The Catholic Church started to pay Saunier what amounted to a small fortune to prevent the 'secret' being made public, and using this money Saunier refurbished the church, and the presbytery and threw wild parties involving the great and the good of French society at that time. I have to confess that when I read these words in the book my BS indicator went off the scale.

Over several years and one or two further visits to the village, I formed a different opinion to those of the novelists as to the origins of the 'fortune' which the priest had spent during his time a Cure of the church.

W hat I discovered was rather more prosaic. He sold masses. Below is one page from a book written in 1994 which contains the correspondence of the 'L'Abbe Saunier' and includes several pages like the ones above. The one above covers the period of just over one month in 1909, and indicates the prices he charged for saying a mass. The man was raking it in.

I'll leave it to you to estimate how much his 'fortune' amounted to. Enjoy!

Yarrow Lake Memorials

Near to where I live is a beautiful lake surrounded by a narrow band of woodland. At this time of year the leaves are turning gold and falling to litter the paths. I try to walk around the lake each day with Lucy, my Golden Retriever. She likes it, and it's good for both of us.

Yarrow Lake, Chorley, Lancashire

 

            By the side of the path encircling the lake are a number of green benches for people to sit and take in the view, or rest, or chat to their friends, or think. Or simply sit. Many of the benches have small metal plaques fixed to them commemorating the lives of people who have during their lifetime enjoyed the lake. Today I decided to take some photos of them and set my imagination to try and picture the person named.

Irene Gartside, brings to mind a solid Lancashire woman. No nonsense, didn't take any prisoners, and loved her family to bits. She probably had white hair and during the latter part of her life wore spectacles. 

Ziggy on the other hand, was a man who came to this country probably after the Second World War and made his life here, like so many other men and women from eastern Europe. He worked hard and made a second life for himself here. Obviously much loved.

One of the plaques which makes me smile each time I see it is John Green's memorial. No idea who he was or when he died. But obviously he was dearly loved and missed by Abbs.

The sadest plaque, one which I read and think of each time I see it is Jessica's plaque. I cannot imagine the sadness and grief which went into the decision to place this one.

Finally, there is one not on a bench. It stands close to a path running by the side of a children's playground. The sadness and pride which the parents of this young man can only be imagined.

Narach, Belarus. The Great Patriotic War

          In May 2012 I made a trip by road to see a friend who lives in Minsk. It had been some sixteen years since I last saw Valentina when she had been an interpreter for a group of Belarusian children who had been affected by the Chernobyl disaster in 1986. Since that trip we had written e mails regularly and eagerly suggested I stay in her apartment in Minsk during my trip to her country. It was a busy time during my stay in Minsk, but very very enjoyable. I saw things and met people ordinary tourists would never see.

            I've written a little before about the trip to Khatyn but this one is a day trip to a different place.  We set off from Minsk on a beautiful May day, the 9th May to be exact. Valentina had suggested this particular day as it was the annual Victory Day parade, and the city centre would be crammed full of people, so a good idea to get out into the country. All over Russia and some of its former satellites the day is revered in the memory of those who served and died in the armed forces during the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945).

             Valentina and myself were in the front seats of the car, and two young students of hers and her son were squashed together in the back seat. As time went on it became obvious that 15 year old Yura in the middle of the back seat was in imminent danger of being crushed by the two female students he was wedged between. Ah well, it's all part of growing up! A memory he will look back on in years to come with affection.

            The place we went to is called Narach and lies in what is called the Lake District, due to the large number of lakes and forests. It is a beautiful place. On the way there we stopped to take obligatory photographs of places of interest, in particular a church on a hill. Don't know what it is called or exactly where it is, but I think you will agree, it is stunning. Here's a photo of the church together with the two students, Katya and Svetlana; oh yes, and Yura.

            The first stop in the small town, which lies by the side of a large lake, was the town's Folk Museum. Considering the size of the place, which was not very big, it contained an amazing variety of ancient and fairly recent artefacts sound in the surrounding areas.  Several things which struck me as we wandered around the place was the number and variety of things relating to the partisans from the area who fought in the war. As I have had an interest in the history of the war and the USSR in general, I was particularly interested in what the museum had on display.

            At one point I whispered to Valentina that the museum seemed particularly quiet for a public holiday. She equally quietly whispered back that it was normally closed, but she had persuaded the museum director and her staff to open the place up for me as I would not have the opportunity to visit again. I was astounded, and not a little impressed. In fact I was overwhelmed to think that the director and two of her staff had come in to open up the museum on thief holiday simply to give me a tour around the place. I started to take more notice.

            As we walked around Valentina and I had a whispered conversation about how she had managed to persuade her to open up the place. I blushed when she told me the reason she had given. I won't repeat it here. I am too embarrassed.

            On leaving the quiet interior of the museum and walking out into the bright sunlight once more I made profuse thanks to the kind lady and her staff and started to walk away back to the car. Valentina called me back. Apparently the director had also arranged for us to meet a local history guide who was going to now take us into the forest nearby. The man duly arrived and after introductions had been made he drove off in his car with us behind, for a twenty minute into a large fir forest close to the town. We bumped along unmade forest tracks until we came to a clearing with a red monument in the middle.  The fir trees soared high above and around us. Sunlight streamed through the tree tops and lit glades and hollows all about. 

Memorial to the Partisans

            I noticed two dug outs built down into the side of gentle low lying areas of the open spaces. They were constructed of wooden logs and roofed with turf. It was explained to me via Valentina that this area was not open to tourists or the public, but again, at the request of the director of the museum, we had been permitted to make this visit.

            The area, during the Great Patriotic War, had been a small encampment constructed by the partisans who then went out into the countryside to attack the invading Nazis. The monument was to the memory of those who had died. Inside the grim little huts were reconstructions of the living quarters, on the walls copies of news bulletins and instructions published in the war.

              Outside the hut was a grey slate plaque mounted on wood.

It reads,  

The dugout was the headquarters of Vilejka Regional Committee of the Leninist Communist Union of Youth of Belarus (OK LKSMB)
Secretary: Pyotr Mironovich  Masherov)
(September 1943 to July 1944) 

            All in all, it was a very memorable place to visit, and as it was on the national holiday to commemorate the war dead, I felt particularly privileged.

Khatyn, Belarus

Today in the UK is what we call Remembrance Day. At the 11th hour on the 11th hour of the 11th month we stop to stand in silence for two minutes in remembrance of the dead of wars. This day I have been thinking of my own father. He died, not in the war, but 41 years ago as a result of the illnesses he suffered as a result of the treatment he received in the Second War as a prisoner of war of the Japanese.  

It also brought to mind a very memorable trip I made to Belarus in 2012. This piece is about part of that visit.

This is the signpost by the side of the road 100 kms north east of Minsk for the village of Khatyn.  The village lies another 4 kms along a gentle forest road and does nothing to prepare you for what you see there. The current village is a monument to the destruction of many many villages of Belarus which was carried out during World War Two, or The Great Patriotic War, as the Russians call it.

 The village of Khatyn is one of several hundred Belarussian villages which were burned to the ground, flattened and the people murdered by the Nazis during the period from 1941-1945.  Over 2 million Belarussians died during that period, not only in the villages but the towns as well.

One in four of the entire population were killed.  One in four.  Think about that a moment.  The capital city of Minsk did not regain it's pre-war population figures until 1971.  Today the country still has not regained its pre-war population figures.  There is a net loss of population going on.

Khatyn (not to be confused with Katyn near Smolensk in Russia - the place where 12,000 Polish officers and intelligentsia were murdered) is a monument built on the footprint of the original village.  

The entire population were herded into a large barn and the barn set fire to.  Those trying to escape were shot, as were others who had managed to get out of the village.  One man from the village lived.  He had been out of the village when the 'action' started.  He is ccommemorated with a larger than life statue at the entrance to the whole site.

Where the villagers houses stood is a concrete outline of the house together with a replica of the chimney.  Set into the top of the chimney is a bell.  The bells toll during the daylight hours to remind visitors of those who had died.  In the entrance to the houses is a grey slate plaque with the names of those people from the house who were killed.  Some were as young as three weeks old. 

The image above is one of many at the site. It is a chimney stack with a small bell on its top. As you walk around the site you can hear the sound of the bell tolling every few seconds, a low melancholy sound. It is mean to represent the death of one person from Belarus during the war. On the front of the chimney are grey slate plaques. They are inscribed with the names of the people from the house which was on the site who were killed.  In the image below you can see the names of a mother and father, together with the names of their three children, aged 11, 9 and 5.

This is the statue of the one surviving man, carrying the dead body of his son from the village.  As you can see, children are encouraged not only to remember those who died, but to respect them as well.

Each of the stone monuments is to represent a Belarussian village destroyed, together with its name.