The history of Alsace-Lorraine is turbulent. It is the most German part of France, right up against the German border, and so it is no surprise that German traditions have spilled west into Alsace-Lorraine.
My husband’s great-grandmother, Marie Blaise, witnessed the arrival of the German army in 1870, during the Franco-Prussian war. If you look at photos of this event, you see these large German men – looking even larger under their plumed helmets – riding huge horses. To a young girl, they would have seemed terrifying. And she was right to be alarmed, for the photos of the Franco-Prussian show an unbelievable level of destruction, which is sadly all-too-familiar to us today.
Having taken over Alsace-Lorraine, the Germans demanded that everyone change their names to make them seem German. And so poor Marie’s last name would have become Bletz, rather than Blaise.
The final insult was requiring its French-speaking inhabitants to speak German. But like so many, her parents refused to kow-tow to the Germans, leaving for Paris to open a bistrot instead.
