Gigi: A D-Day Survivor's Tale of WWII and the G.I. She Met

Les porte-drapeaux Gary (Nadeau)
Nadolski et Gigi (Laîné) Nadolski

Among the participants at the September 11 commemoration in Paris last year, was a Franco-American couple who were flag carriers Gary (Nadeau) Nadolski and Gigi (Laîné) Nadolski

Gigi (Laîné) Nadolski is the second standard-bearer from the left
while Gary (Nadeau) Nadolski is the first flag-bearer from the right

A D-Day Survivor from Normandy Is Still Together with the American GI She Met After WWII

The interview starts with the interviewee questioning the No Pasarán interviewer (moi) about the flag (thanks to Sarah) I was carrying and what the snake upon it symbolizes. (A few times that I have taken the flag to pro-America demonstrations, members have wearily asked me if I wasn't some leftist trying to crash the demonstration with a symbol of something critical, even devilish.) I explain to one and to all that it was/is the Navy Jack flown by the USA's first ships in the late 1700s. Bearing a rattlesnake and the words "Don't Tread on Me", the First Navy Jack is based on the Gadsden Flag.

At 1:11, Mrs. Nadolski explains that she was a little girl of 7 in Normandy on June 6, 1944 (then named Gigi Laîné), and that she remembers the day very well.

I get up with my parents and my sister, and we see things falling from the skies. My parents tell me, We are all leaving our home and going to hide in a ditch. Bombs start falling around the house and thank God we got out, because a bomb landed on our house. So we didn't go back, we stayed in the ditch for six days. My two elder brothers went to the farm next door to get food.

After the war, my parents//my mother put us in a boarding school in Paris went to live in a , because they had no more. After the war, my parents could not rebuild their farm, the government did not want to pay our bills, I'm not too sure about the details, so we stayed in the boarding school for seven more years. Every morning, for the first years at the boarding school, we received peanut butter every morning, it was the first time I had ever tasted that.

My husband I met on the Champs-Élysées in Paris. It turned out that we were both working for NATO, he on the seventh floor and I on the ninth floor of the same building.  I worked for the administration and he in another section. And one day he invited me to drink a café on the Champs-Élysées. Then he invited me to a movie, and we continued dating, and that's how it all started.

At one point, we were transferred to the United States, and in Chicago I immediately got a job, working for the Encyclopedia Britannica. We stayed 27 years in the U.S., I became an American, and my children are all born in Chicago. They have dual citizenship, and so do I. But when I go to America, I lose my French nationality. You're not allowed to have dual citizenship in America. [This is not true, a mistake.] But I am French, 100%. Being an American is perfect, but I prefer being French. 

The 22nd Commemoration in Paris of the September 11, 2001 (911 9-11) Attacks Anniversary

A l'occasion du 22eme anniversaire des attentats du 11 septembre, un hommage organisé par la Mairie du 16ème Arrondissement a été rendu aux victimes devant l'Arbre de la Liberté sur la Place des États-Unis.

Parmi les nombreux participants, dont the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) et the American Legion Paris Post 1, on a pu reconnaître Erik Svane (holding his Navy Jack), Paul Reen, et Marie-Thérèse Foreau de RIF, ainsi que les porte-drapeaux Gary (Nadeau) Nadolski et Gigi (Laîné) Nadolski.

Gigi (Laîné) Nadolski is holding the Stars and Stripes while
Gary (Nadeau) Nadolski is holding the American Legion's dark blue banner

Wearing red white 'n' blue while bringing
the First Navy Jack to the 911 commemoration

Gigi (Laîné) Nadolski is holding the Stars and Stripes while
Gary (Nadeau) Nadolski is holding the dark blue banner of American Legion Paris Post 1