As British Forces pushed past Bayeux, the grim task of burying thousands of fallen Allied soldiers in Normandy commenced.
Harry Rossney painted war cemetery signboards and carved inscriptions on numerous graves.
This was the reality of his duties:
(🧵)
Harry Rossney painted war cemetery signboards and carved inscriptions on numerous graves.
This was the reality of his duties:
(🧵)
The harsh realities of war were ever-present for Harry Rossney, a sign-writer by trade, who moved from 93 Company of the Alien Pioneer Corps to 32 Graves Registration Unit in Bayeux.
He oversaw and trained the workforce tasked with sign-writing temporary grave markers, later replaced by white stones from the Imperial War Graves Commission (now the Commonwealth War Graves Commission).
Rossney also hand-painted large signboards for war cemeteries across Normandy, including Bayeux, Ranville, and Hottot.
(continued)
He oversaw and trained the workforce tasked with sign-writing temporary grave markers, later replaced by white stones from the Imperial War Graves Commission (now the Commonwealth War Graves Commission).
Rossney also hand-painted large signboards for war cemeteries across Normandy, including Bayeux, Ranville, and Hottot.
(continued)
He describes that period:
"I was ordered to join 32 Graves Registration Unit (32 GRU) in Bayeux immediately. No argument, no requests, no alternatives. With heavy heart I left my old mates of 93 Company – this oasis of fellow Jewish-German and Austrian refugees who understood and felt the same, had the same outlook, accents and humour.
I felt shattered and very alone. When they told me what I had to do, my heart sank to my boots. Bury the dead. Create a workshop to paint white metal crosses and sign-write every dead soldier's name, number, regiment and religion. We came face-to-face with the price of war each and every day. But someone had to do it. The dead numbered in their thousands."
(continued)
"I was ordered to join 32 Graves Registration Unit (32 GRU) in Bayeux immediately. No argument, no requests, no alternatives. With heavy heart I left my old mates of 93 Company – this oasis of fellow Jewish-German and Austrian refugees who understood and felt the same, had the same outlook, accents and humour.
I felt shattered and very alone. When they told me what I had to do, my heart sank to my boots. Bury the dead. Create a workshop to paint white metal crosses and sign-write every dead soldier's name, number, regiment and religion. We came face-to-face with the price of war each and every day. But someone had to do it. The dead numbered in their thousands."
(continued)
"Our unit, which was responsible for about eighteen British war cemeteries, occupied a single-storey house with garage, garden and space behind. It consisted of a handful of selected specialists, local French labourers and a dozen German POWs.
Tools were in short supply, so the POWs made their own brushes and rulers. Two other German refugees joined our unit, a non-Jewish artist Walter Nessler who had refused to toe the Nazi party line, and Jack Dalton, originally a paint-sprayer.
I made it my business to hand-letter every big nameboard for each cemetery, white lettering on black, large enough to be seen from a clear distance."
(continued)
Tools were in short supply, so the POWs made their own brushes and rulers. Two other German refugees joined our unit, a non-Jewish artist Walter Nessler who had refused to toe the Nazi party line, and Jack Dalton, originally a paint-sprayer.
I made it my business to hand-letter every big nameboard for each cemetery, white lettering on black, large enough to be seen from a clear distance."
(continued)
"One day whilst in Normandy, close to Hottot, one of our cemeteries, I stumbled across a hastily dug shallow grave with a small wooden cross, and a German helmet with a neat sniper's bullet hole in the temple. The name read 'Heinz Brand'. I was shocked. It was none other than my school friend from Berlin. He had been no Nazi, but had obviously fought in the German Army."
(continued)
(continued)
Harry Rossney, one of 10,000 German Jews who fought for Britain in WWII, later engraved temporary wooden crosses for fallen soldiers buried in places like Bayeux. He performed this duty daily for a year, paying tribute to the fallen.
Proud of his six-year service in the British Army, Harry found the loss of so many young lives deeply harrowing. As a Jew, he faced the painful irony of his Christian cousins dying for Hitler at Stalingrad.
Though Harry is now gone, his wartime contributions and artistic legacy in honouring soldiers in British war cemeteries in France endure.
(continued...ending)
Proud of his six-year service in the British Army, Harry found the loss of so many young lives deeply harrowing. As a Jew, he faced the painful irony of his Christian cousins dying for Hitler at Stalingrad.
Though Harry is now gone, his wartime contributions and artistic legacy in honouring soldiers in British war cemeteries in France endure.
(continued...ending)
Did Harry Rossney’s story of tending war graves resonate with you?
If his wartime experiences taught you something new, please consider following me @DrHelenFry for more authentic WWII stories.
I have plenty more to share.
(end).
If his wartime experiences taught you something new, please consider following me @DrHelenFry for more authentic WWII stories.
I have plenty more to share.
(end).
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