A French war veteran stands by his post of thick reinforced concrete and barbed wire. In French-accented but good German, he tells the youths that the site was visited by Hitler himself in 1940 after it was taken by the Germans, and that another bloody battle occurred here in November 1944 as the retreating German army doggedly fought the advancing Allies. But for the young Germans, all this is part of a bygone era. Their future is more likely to be shaped by trends and decisions at the European Parliament in Strasbourg, half an hour away in Alsace. Strasbourg, at the heart of a region embodying historic French-German enmity, was chosen as one of the European Community's two capitals.
Schoolchildren come on field trips to see the modern buildings housing the European institutions.
These children are no longer only French or German, but citizens of Europe. The past adds a particularly interesting dimension to Alsace, the charming and friendly region of northeastern France. Alsace offers so much within a geographically compact area that it satisfies a wide variety of personal tastes. Strasbourg is a major city boasting one of France's great Gothic cathedrals. At the southern entrance, Jewish visitors should look for two elongated stone sculptures representing the reigning Church and the blindfolded Synagogue - an outstanding expression of the canonic view of Christianity and Judaism.