In limbo: Bid to get a UN honour for D-Day beaches

OTTAWA — The beaches of Normandy, where the Allies stormed ashore to begin the liberation of Europe from Nazi rule, are widely regarded by veterans and historians as venerated, sacred ground.

And yet those beaches — including the one code-named Juno, where thousands of Canadians landed under a fearsome tirade of German fire on June 6, 1944 — have not been designated as culturally or historically significant by the United Nations.

It’s not for a lack of trying: France applied to the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization in

2014 to have the beaches designated a UNESCO World Heritage site, much like several other locations linked to the Second World War.

But that bid remains in limbo, dashing hopes the application might have been heard in time to celebrate this year’s 75th anniversary of the Juno landings, in which 359 Canadians were killed and 574 were wounded.

Serge Durflinger is one of those who firmly believes the D-Day invasion beaches are “incontestably important” to the world and meet the very high standards for the UN designation.

The University of Ottawa history professor was part of a team of international experts that included archeologists, geologists and other specialists who were brought together by the French government to help with the D-Day application.

“The Normandy campaign and the D-Day invasion involved people from dozens of countries, all engaged in a united purpose, all brought to this small coastal region in France for the beginning of what would become the end of Nazi Germany,” Durflinger said.

“And they’re all combining efforts on a global scale in this titanic effort, which was also one of the single greatest, momentous military operations ever mounted that we know about. And that it has scientific achievement, and its remnants are very real.”

Getting the beaches added to the list of UNESCO World Heritage sites conveys a number of benefits, including honouring those who fought and died there and giving D-Day what Durflinger describes as “an international seal of approval.”

“The notion of what happened here would not be limited to the Anglo-Saxon countries of Britain and the United States and Canada, basically,” he said, arguing the event was a pinnacle moment in the history of Europe and the world.

“Something very, very important happened there, and not just for the countries that landed, but for the greater good of the world, with the beginning of the creation of an international system that lasted half a century.”