May 8, 1945 : National memory of bloodbath lives on

Everything started as a peaceful celebration for the end of the Second World War on May 8, 1945. Algerians headed to the streets with innocent intentions, ignoring what would happen that day and more than half of them wouldn’t return home.

The French colonizer “authorized” protests with one condition: only French flags must be lifted a hard thing for Algerian citizens who took the occasion to recall and remember their cause and request for freedom. After the first defiance by a young Algerian lifting high the nation’s flag, starting from Sétif to Kherrata and Guelma, the crowd and many other cities followed the path, which led to the madness of the French colonizers who began a horror show in the streets with massive and cruel killing of thousands of innocents whose only crime was to defend their identity and call for freedom.

The situation went out of control for the French, who turned it into a bloodbath; historians estimated the losses at more than 45.000 people. The sinister pôlice chief Achiary went on falsing the cruel ordeal of denying such mass murdering by french authorities.

The French government stayed silent on the massive massacres of May 8, 1945, until 2012, when French President François Hollande admitted it in front of the Algerian parliament. Till today, tremendous protests and marches are held every May 8, with many youngsters commemorating the memory of their grandparents and even moudjahid sons, all still asking for recognition and willing to find the graves of their parents. An event that shows once more that national memory is and will always stay alive as long as there is life in this country, and history will never forget what France made Algerians endure 81 years ago.

Rasha.S