Paris marks 75th anniversary of WWII liberation

PARIS — Paris is celebrating the American soldiers, French Resistance fighters and others who liberated the City of Light from Nazi occupation exactly 75 years ago.

Firefighters unfurled a huge French flag Sunday from the Eiffel Tower, recreating the moment when a French tricolor stitched together from sheets was hoisted atop the monument 75 years ago to replace the swastika flag that had flown for four years.

People dressed in World War II-era military uniforms and dresses paraded in southern Paris, retracing the entry of French and U.S. tanks into the city on Aug. 25, 1944.

Long the jewel of European cities, Paris suffered relatively little damage in World War II, but its citizens were humiliated, hungry and mistrustful after 50 months under the Nazis.

The liberation of Paris was both joyous and chaotic. It was faster and easier for the Allies than their protracted battle through Normandy and its gun-filled hedgerows. But the fight for the French capital killed nearly 5,000 people, including Parisian civilians, German troops and members of the French Resistance.

After invading in 1940, the Nazi hierarchy ensconced themselves in Paris’ luxury hotels, and hobnobbed at theaters and fine restaurants. Collaborationist militias kept order, and French police were complicit in the most dastardly act of the Occupation: the 1942 roundup of around 13,000 Jews at the Vel d’Hiv bicycle stadium before their eventual deportation to the Auschwitz death camp in German-occupied Poland.

The Parisians who weren’t deported or didn’t flee used ration tickets to eat, wooden soles on shoes to replace scarce leather and sometimes curtains for clothes. The black market thrived.

The D-Day landings on June 6, 1944, helped change the tide of the war, allowing the Allies to push...