The Marolles Tribunal | 2014-18.brussels

July 1919: In the aftermath of the signature of the Versailles treaty, a Victory March solemnly commemorated the Allied victory in Brussels, Paris and London. The people of the Marolles celebrated this their own way. Wearing costumes, they staged the important events that took place in the capital during the war. They mocked, as we see on this picture, the justice administered by the Germans in 1914-1918.

Less than three decades after the Armistice, the memory of the Great War strongly influenced the way in which the Second World War was lived and interpreted by the people of Brussels. After 1945, under the weight of the latest events, the memory of the Great War was nevertheless erased. Monuments of 1914-1918 were still visible, sometimes the names of the victims of 1940-1945 were added to the former ones, but nobody seemed to pay any special attention. Only at the end of the 20th century did the Great War again become an essential tool to understand our world.