Oscar was my great grandfather. Born in 1894 from a village in the suburbs of Paris. He was a farmer. In December 1914, he was enrolled to the war. He was only 19.
In 2012, I found his letters that he was sending to his sister; my great grandmother Eugénie. On the letters, he tells about his boredom, his fear of loved ones.
He survived the war. With few scars, and a missing finger. He died in 1970. He never told a single memory of these times.
4 generations are separating us. 100 years
So many pictures were accompanying the letters. I decided to go back on his steps. I saw what was once called “hell on earth”, the horror of the trenchees, the no man’s land, there, where life and Nature erased, today, almost all traces of death. However, here and there, the lands kept marks and it is still not surprising today, to find bullets, or other weapons remnants of the world war one..
To understand where we are today, we need to understand what happened in the past and keep the souvenir alive to be sure that never again a war like this would occur.
I photographed the lands, in analog 4x5in format. I tried to give back to the land, their past identity.
All images © Clément Beraud 2012 - 2014