On the Col du Wettstein there is a French war cemetery. A little further down the road, on the Mont Baerenstall, is the German war cemetery. I happened to pass the first one at the right time: the sunset was playing a subtle game of light and dark, the age old metaphor of the battle between good and evil… That play, combined with the very strict geometry of such a cemetery, was perfect for a photo shoot.
What attracted my attention at the German war cemetery, was the rank of some of the soldiers: “Ersatz-Reservist”. Michael Martin was one of them. As far as my knowledge of German goes ‘Ersatz’ means substitute. And an Ersatz-Reservist is kind of a substitute: they were the guys that were drafted to fill the gaps when the ‘real’ reservist had fallen in combat… To die themselves in that war, in a battle of which they probably didn’t know what it was for.
Eddy
