[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 115 (Tuesday, August 16, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 16, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                       HONORING NORMANDY'S HEROES

                                 ______


                          HON. BILL RICHARDSON

                             of new mexico

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, August 16, 1994

  Mr. RICHARDSON. Mr. Speaker, this year's 50th anniversary of the 
Normandy invasion has once again reminded us about the countless number 
of heroes who have served our country in war. The hundreds of veterans 
who traveled to France for the D-day anniversary were warmly greeted by 
grateful French citizens who were well aware their very existence was 
due to the American servicemen's heroics.
  One such hero, Louis Scheinbaum, was accompanied by his wife Rhoda 
and son David. David, the owner of a Santa Fe, NM, photography gallery, 
chronicled his father's historic return using his photographic and 
literary skills.
  The Santa Fe New Mexican presented an excellent summary of the 
Scheinbaums trip to France. I urge my colleagues to read writer Denise 
Kusel's outstanding summary as it presents us all with a new 
appreciation for America, sacrifice and patriotism.

             [From the Santa Fe New Mexican, July 4, 1994]

                       In the Presence of Heroes

                           (By Denise Kusel)

       War was a mystery that permeated his childhood. For Santa 
     Fe photographer and gallery owner David Scheinbaum, the 
     mystery was defused when he accompanied his father back to a 
     tiny French village in Normandy for the 50th anniversary of 
     D-Day.
       Once there, the people he met--those who had survived the 
     war and children who have only known peace--touched him 
     deeply. It also gave him a new understanding of his father.
       ``I knew my father was a medic and that he was awarded the 
     Bronze Star for his courage,'' Scheinbaum said. ``But what I 
     didn't know was that my father was a hero.''
       Scheinbaum eventually spent nine days in France, some of 
     them with a family in La Haye du Puits, a small town south of 
     Cherbourg liberated by his father's 79th Infantry Division. 
     Once there, he became a witness to a chunk of history that 
     continued to unfold as a tour bus filled with WWII veterans 
     rolled into the town.
       ``Everyone on the bus was welcomed by this town,'' 
     Scheinbaum said. ``The scene was incredibly powerful. Right 
     here, you realize that these guys had come back to a town and 
     they were being welcomed by people who knew that if it were 
     not for these men, there wouldn't be a town. The town's 
     people credit these men with their very existence.''
       During his visit to France, Scheinbaum kept a journal and 
     watched the events through the lens of his camera. The words 
     he wrote and the photographs he made as a witness to history 
     tell a powerful story.
       From his journal:
       ``When you hear them talk about the battles and hear them 
     describe scenes of death and fighting and then look at these 
     men, it doesn't correlate. They are not the John Waynes or 
     rednecks we imagine the soldiers might be. They are these old 
     grampas. . . . What besides the wrong of war--the Nazis, 
     etc.--could make them able to kill? . . . But I'm really in 
     the presence of heroes and I'm sure proud my father is one of 
     them.''
       In stark black and white, Scheinbaum's photographs are 
     eloquent in their simplicity. A child playing in the crater 
     left by a bomb, now an inviting grassy knoll. Two old men, 
     their arms linked for support, placing flowers at a monument 
     to the 79th Infantry Division. A lone veteran on the Normandy 
     beach.
       From the get-go, David Scheinbaum will tell you war is not 
     his thing. He protested during the Vietnam Era. and at 43, he 
     doesn't remember World War II; no memories, that is, except 
     the stories his father told him at bedtime.
       When he decided to accompany his father to Normandy for the 
     D-Day anniversary celebrations in early June, it was a trip 
     he wasn't looking forward to.
       ``Those nine days will be the longest year I ever spent,'' 
     he quipped to his wife, Janet Russek, as she dropped him off 
     at the Albuquerque airport for the first leg of his trip.
       Three days later, in the very town his father, Lou 
     Scheinbaum, 75, helped liberate 50 years before, David 
     Scheinbaum, the owner of a Santa Fe photography gallery, 
     witnessed another chunk of history. This one touched him 
     directly and left him a changed man.
       ``There was always this mystery about the war when I was 
     growing up in Brooklyn. It was very much part of our lives,'' 
     Scheinbaum said. ``There were objects in the house we never 
     touched. A Nazi flag. A German beer stein. Don't touch that, 
     was the rule. That's from the war.
       ``I never understood it, the war. It was this thing my 
     father did. The places and people he remembered were things 
     he spoke about fondly, with pride and humor.
       ``We never talked about the dreams he would have; the times 
     when he'd wake up screaming in the middle of the night. If I 
     close my eyes, I can still hear this howl thing he would do 
     in his sleep. My father never told us the horror stories.
       ``As a child, it added to some kind of confusion in my 
     mind. My own involvement with war (in Vietnam) was as a 
     protester. The images of war I was exposed to were nothing 
     like the stories I heard from my father.''
       Scheinbaum squeezed his eyes shut. ``I had my father's war 
     pictures, his snapshots,'' he said. ``As I grew older, I had 
     less understanding of how my father had this sense of pride. 
     I knew my father was a medic and that he was awarded the 
     Bronze Star for his courage. But what I didn't know was that 
     my father was a hero.''
       For Scheinbaum, that reality changed when the bus pulled 
     into La Haye du Puits, a small town south of Cherbourg. On it 
     were Scheinbaum, his mother and father and other World War II 
     veterans. Lining the streets, the townspeople stood, waiving 
     American flags, and cheering.
       ``I was in awe. I was moved. Everyone on the bus was 
     crying. I don't cry, but I was crying, too. Just minutes 
     before, I was on this bus filled with senior citizens. It 
     could have been an Elderhostel tour. Suddenly, I was on a bus 
     filled with heroes.
       ``Everyone on this bus was welcomed by this town. Just 
     being there, it made me one of the group. I was one of them. 
     I could hardly focus the camera. I was just totally blown 
     away.
       ``I knew this welcome wasn't for me. I was just there with 
     my parents, but this was for Americans. For all Americans. 
     The scene was incredibly powerful. The church bells started 
     ringing. Everyone on the bus was overwhelmed. I began looking 
     at everyone a little differently. They weren't old; they were 
     soldiers returning to a town they had liberated. Right here, 
     you realize that these guys had come back to a town and they 
     were being welcomed by people who knew that if it were not 
     for these men, there wouldn't be a town. The town's people 
     credit these men with their very existence.''
       Scheinbaum paused, wiped his glasses and smiled shyly. His 
     eyes brightened as he again was caught up in the excitement 
     of that moment, and he ran his fingers through his long, 
     black hair.
       ``My father has Parkinson's. This past year, he hasn't had 
     a whole lot of facial expression, but in this picture (on the 
     cover of this section) there is more facial expression than 
     I've seen in a year. And sitting on the bus, I just wasn't 
     used to such an open show of emotion.
       ``We were being treated with such honor and respect. You 
     knew this was love. It wasn't out of a sense of duty. It came 
     right from inside. For me, when I looked at my father, it was 
     like a light going on. That's when I suddenly understood what 
     this war thing was all about for him.
       ``One of the things that stayed with me long after I 
     returned home was that these people in La Haye du Puits were 
     celebrating 50 years of peace. There's a strong feeling that 
     they want their children to know what happened so that it 
     will never happen again. A lot of the children were involved 
     in every single part of the ceremonies. I had the feeling 
     that the monuments and parades were for their children as 
     much as for the returning soldiers.
       ``There were these children who have grown up with this 
     image of American heroes. And the way they looked at the 
     returning soldiers, it was as if they were finally meeting 
     the people their parents and grandparents had told them 
     about. They were wide-eyed as they approached these men. They 
     had autograph books. And here I was the son of one of these 
     men and I had no idea about what the importance of what my 
     father did during the war.''
       Two days later, at official D-Day ceremonies at Omaha 
     Beach, Scheinbaum trained his photographer's eye on the 
     cliffs and beaches.
       ``When I saw these beaches, it was unbelievable they were 
     so narrow,'' he said. ``The cliffs almost came right down to 
     the sea. It was like White Sands meets the Sangre de Cristos 
     and the war's on top.
       ``That afternoon, there were these great ceremonies, 
     pompous and elegant, but the biggest ceremony came after when 
     I would watch these men walking alone on the beach, maybe 
     replaying that battle 50 years ago in their heads. Only they 
     know what they had to deal with there. And they would stand 
     on this beach at Pointe du Hoc (a cliff head that juts out 
     between Utah and Omaha Beach) beneath these 100-foot cliffs 
     where so many of their comrades had lost their lives and 
     reach down a pick up a stone or a little sand and put it in 
     their pockets and walk away in silence.''
       Scheinbaum's photographs tell this story. In stark black 
     and white, they are eloquent in their uncensored simplicity. 
     A child playing in the crater left by a bomb, now an inviting 
     grassy knoll. Two men, their arms linked for support, placing 
     flowers at the base of a monument to the 79th Infantry 
     Division--the famed Cross of Lorraine Division, disbanded 
     after World War I, the so-called war to end all wars, but 
     reactivated for the invasion of Normandy.
       In another photograph, two cemeteries--one German, dark 
     with its Germanic iron crosses, the other American with row 
     upon row of white crosses and an occasional Star of David, 
     but both graveyards dressed with freshly cut flowers.
       And finally, a photograph of a labyrinth of barbed wire 
     awesome in its silence and rust and left behind by the 
     Germans some 50 years before at the very top of a cliff above 
     Omaha Beach.
       ``I knew I wanted to bring my father back for D-Day,'' 
     Scheinbaum said. ``I knew he was ill. I know soon he won't be 
     able to travel much. He's never been back (to France). My 
     mother had never been to Europe. I'd been saving up for about 
     a year to take them.
       ``In La Haye du Puits, we would be staying with a French 
     family, and to tell to you the truth, I was not looking 
     forward to these three days with a strange family. As it 
     turned out, it was one of the best things that's ever 
     happened to me. Suddenly, I had a new family and I'm a 
     different person because of it.
       ``It absolutely changed my life. All this stuff just 
     clicked and came into place. I never had strangers treat me 
     like that and love me like that,'' he said, touching his 
     heart.
       Scheinbaum, an associate professor of art with a 
     specialization in photography, typically spends years on a 
     photographic project. The event changed the way he works, 
     helping infuse him with a new sense of immediacy. ``I shot 16 
     roles of 36-exposure film,'' he said. ``When I got home, I 
     developed all 16 roles in one day. This has brought back a 
     certain passion for photography I haven't had in a long time.
       ``It'll take me awhile to process my feelings, but I feel 
     that when it's all sorted out, it gets down to one thing--
     people. The men who returned and those who honored them, 
     giving thanks for a generation that's known peace.''

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