The last French veteran of the First World War has passed away

The French writer Marc Dugain pays homage to the last French WWI veteran, Lazare Ponticelli, who passed away on Wednesday, March 12th, at the age of 110. "The man who has just left us, Lazare Ponticelli, belonged to an immense family about on the verge of extinction, that of the surviving First Word War veterans. ... Henceforth, the memory of one of the biggest massacres in the history of humanity will not belong to a single man, but to all humanity. With his last breath, Ponticelli has just bequeathed it to us. ... With the passing away of this modest man, it is not a relic that is disappearing, but our biological link to a drama that occupies a considerable part of our collective conscience. This drama has been a heavy burden. Twenty years after it, traumatised democracies made way for another form of monstrosity. When the last survivor of the Shoah disappears, maybe we will be done with that gloriless century that has covered us in shame."

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