Grostenquin France

This is not France, this is not Germany and there is no atmosphere of an independent country neither, this is simply a tiny area in Lorraine where the dominant language is a German dialect with variations from village to village which gave the possibility of locating people due to these variations. Ten kilometers further West (i.e. Morhange), anything West of Morhange was really France as this dialect was not spoken there, and anything some 25 Km East, Germany, the country the enemy at that time.

A totally disrupted and heavily demolished area due to the war. No, it is neither the area where the famous Caravelle and later the Concord airplane nor the high speed TGV train were on the drawing boards nor where Christian Dior and Chanel produce their perfumes. Would you believe, even the wine is not good, but a very simple area where the most educated people were in the following order : Monsieur le Curé, the school teacher and whenever there were any, the veterinarian and the doctor in this deep rural area.

All others had a "low" level of education (hope nobody will kill me for that). Depending on the age status, some had only been to school in German, others in French but most had forgotten all about it, as they seldom needed to use it later on. In addition, and the worst of this, those who had been (depending on the results of the wars) to both schools systems, (a few years in French and a few years in German) ended up knowing very little either. The administration and judicial systems, customs and police forces were all people transplanted from the other end of France, say the South West, so this is where Monsieur le Curé, the school teacher and the others were handy whenever there were different documents to be filled out. The climate: could be very warm at times in the summer and very cold in the winter; the future will explain that the winters were cold due to inadequate heating systems. The rest of the time it could get quite foggy.

Canada, oh yes, it was known : the Mayor at the time, a Mr. Firmin Rechenmann (now deceased) had a brother who had immigrated to Canada, to Regina if I remember well. This brother came back once and brought Mr. Rechemann a "hunting rifle" from Canada, something which was considered out of the ordinary, automatic or semi-automatic (I don’t remember exactly) , very precise, something to be proud of and shown only to very few fortunate friends, however I am not too sure whether it had ever been used. Another farmer, across from Bistrof, a Mr. Claude Petry also had an uncle who had moved to Regina, Canada, where he was employed as a school teacher. Later on, there was one of the gendarmes who had a brother in the French Air Force and he was sent for training as pilot to Edmonton and unfortunately, he ultimately got killed in a crash. Then there was also a Mr. Albert Sadler, while being in the German Army in Normandy. Oh yes, I must specify, that with all these wars and not only the results but also the interim results, some of our people served in the French forces, others in the German forces and believe it or not, at one time or another, some in both, For example, one after the other and furthermore, in the same family, depending on the age of the boys, there could have been one in the French army while the other one was in the German army; you get the picture ?.

Coming back to Mr. Sadler, who still lives on rue du Stade in Grostenquin, one day he recognized a Canadian who was then at the base Grostenquin. Mr. Sadler had during the war chosen not shoot at the Canadian because he was hidden in a tree and had no weapon. He let him get down and made him a prisoner of war. I really don’t know how many drinks this reunification in a Grostenquin café turned into but I am sure that you can figure it out. Those who knew a little bit more through the souvenirs of their school days, claimed that Canada is a country with endless farms, many Indians and Eskimos, a lot of snow and very cold. That is the picture of Canada and what the people in this very rural and conservative and deeply religious area knew about that country.

One day, news came that a military base would be built in the area. A big economic boom for the area was foreseen. The construction was done mainly by large companies from Paris, plus a few local sub-contractors. This gave a lot of employment and put a lot of money into the area. Anybody who had a spare room had no difficulty renting it. Restaurants such as "Chez Streiff" in Grostenquin served up to 300 meals a day. This place used to be the dancing room which was used twice a year; namely on St-Jean Baptist day, the patron of the parish and once on New Year's eve. One service, say, at 6 P.M. for 150 workers and the other at 7 P.M. for the other batch of 150. Single menu obviously. Same thing at "Chez Trautmann". Not only Grostenquin benefited from that boom but other places such as Guessling-Hemering, Lelling, Lixing, Faulquemont, St-Avold, to name a few, took advantage of it.

One day the construction was considered to be more or less completed and the first soldiers arrived to prepare the future arrival of the F-86. At this point, may I say that I was pleased to see one of these aircraft at the Ottawa Museum when I visited Ottawa a few years ago. Now remember, this is a deep rural and very conservative area in a post war atmosphere and furthermore speaking the language of the enemy!

So, for the local citizens, any outsider was immediately noticed. These guys (the newcomers) came dressed in all kind of colours: T-shirts with colourfull decorations, Levy-Strauss jeans, no means of transportation, which meant walking 6 km to and from the base to go to Grostenquin, mainly "Chez Streiff" and "Chez Trautmann".

For these people, even the drinks available at those Bars were strange but the prices were so low that few complaints were ever heard. Later on came the cars, second hand black American cars, very second hand, mainly available in Luxembourg, Belgium, Holland and Switzerland. That period lasted a few years and then came the American beauties, convertibles etc... and of course a few Harleys.

One day the word came that the base would be closed, no one realizing that these agreements or rather disagreements had been made by higher-ups both in Paris and in Ottawa. A kind of cold war, not really, no incidents took place, let us call it a cold atmosphere reigned. People did not look into each other's eyes, they were upset, the one's for seeing friends leave the other one's for leaving friends. The locals employed at the base lost their jobs one after the other. The base closed, a solid gate was installed at the main entrance, trees and bushes invaded the place. Only good memories remained till today about a story that started...some 50 years ago!

Charles Borsenberger