Quiet monuments of Paris
I'm strolling along somewhere by the Pyramid Métro when I come upon this unusual monument.
That would be pockmarks from a bomb dropped in World War I. And now, it's on the side of a building next to a Chinese food restaurant and a shoe shop. Right there. Where I stood. Planes. Dropped. Bombs.Birds were lapping up the sunshine, chirping away, car horns were mimicking as best they could. Life was being lived. And yet at one point in time, life here on this sidewalk was being BOMBED.
Boggles the mind.
Meandering closer to home, I often zigzag through the quieter streets. I came upon this sign outside of an apartment that looks a lot like my own apartment.
One of France's literary treasures was nabbed right here, sent to Auschwitz in World War II and killed.Children skipped by from the school next door. Glasses chinked and chimed from the café nearby. And once, before all this, a bunch of ruffians with badges walked up this street and pulled a guy out of this building and sent him to a death camp.Paris is weird that way. It's a circus. A full on celebration of itself. Yet on quiet streets just around the corner, one is asked to pay homage to another time, if only for a moment.
