Liz put some of her skills to use a few days ago, teaching some of the ladies in our branch how to make cinnamon rolls. They had never seen this done, but had heard about how good they were. She's using the dining room table and, after they spread out their balls of dough (which Liz pre prepared), she's showing them how to add sugar and cinnamon prior to rolling them up.

Cinnamon rolls and the Relief Society (well, about half of the ladies in our branch). From left to right:

Charlotte Martin, Maryvon Livory, Liz, Christine Hebert.

They had a good time, and I hear that they were able to get the rolls eaten without any problem.

The finished product up close. Yes, they tasted as good as they look. Liz froze the batch at the top, and we fed most of them to our elders at District meeting yesterday. I can't complain, because I did get to eat 2 1/2 of them!

A view of the city of Cherbourg and the harbor, taken from the top of Mount Roule, the highest point on the edge of the city. There is a large ferry boat at the end of the dock, and the huge circular building on the left is Pasteur Hospital.

You can click on the picture to see it enlarged.

This is not a favorite tourist town, but we think it is a beautiful place.

Cherbourg was not a beautiful place in the 1940s. It was one of the most important ports in Europe, and was overtaken by the German army early in the fighting. Thousands of French troops escaped from here on boats to England one day before their conquerors took over the city.

Fort Roule. We visited this place a few days ago. It is now a museum, and we spent about two hours wandering through it and reading about the war. I only took a few photos.

This granite building and a myriad of runnels bored in the "mountain" (it's only several hundred feet high) were a command post of the German occupation of Cherbourg in WW II. You can see some of the tunnel exits/gun emplacements just below the top of the mountain.

What a terrible time this was for France. Within a month of starting the conflict, Hitler had conquered all of Western Europe, and had signed a non-aggression treaty with Russia so he could concentrate on the defeat of England.

This is how Germany kept its war effort going. Youth camps were set up to send boys for fun, games, and indoctrination. Later in the war, many of them were in the front lines, many of them still more boys than men.

Propaganda posters were in place everywhere, attempting to blame the allied forces for all of France's woes. Many of these were supplied by the Vichy government, formed by French collaborators who helped the Germans control the population.

Propaganda notwithstanding, the French resistance did a lot to inhibit the Germans. Some of their information came from the BBC broadcasts from England. This picture was probably used in many places, showing a German soldier romancing a French woman. However, the frame (as you can see in the side) held an illegal radio!

(That's lipstick in the front)

Rationing books and coupons were needed for most basic goods. Gasoline was almost impossible to obtain, so some of the resourceful people built coal or wood fueled generators on their cars to produce coal gas to run their vehicles.

The people in the countryside fared much better, as they had gardens and animals. A black market supplied a lot, even though it was risky and highly illegal to buy goods not controlled by the rations.

All Jews were forced to wear a yellow star on their clothes so they could be identified. Families were broken up, some were sent to concentration camps and extermination camps. These people truly suffered at the hands of their occupation.

The long awaited announcement, May 8, 1945. France erupted in celebration when the news of the German surrender was heard and printed.

It took months to get food supplies and other goods going well again, but it must have been a great relief to know that the worst was over.

Being here, and seeing photos of streets and areas that we know well filled with German soldiers, stores with "Pas de pain" (no bread), "Pas de viande" (no meat), lineups for basics, people being put on trains to be shipped off to camps and German factories made us understand just a little what these people went through for years!