STEPHANE KRAUS

Stephan was born in 1962, as Darryl Zanuck was filming « the Longest Day » Stephan was christened at the church of Grandcamp, close by the Pointe du Hoc; Using the bunkers as a playground in the summertime surely developed some Interest about the men who lived inside, about the ones who climbed the cliff to storm the place, and step by step all the history of the WWII.

His grandmother play a very important role in his passion, telling all the stories she lived before, during and after the war (ask him how her pink silk nightgown ended up into the hands of general Eisenhower).
Stephan was born and raised in the east of France up to the age of 16 when the family moved definitively to Caen.
This is also at the age of 16 that Stephan, lying on his age, joined the French Foreign Legion; as they figured out quickly that he was too young, his was rejected after a week, but two years later, joined the French Marine Corps, this time for three years; He is also still currently serving in the French Army reserve. Being Born in Lorraine, by the German border, Stephan has got a complicated family tree, in WW I and WW II, some served in the French army, some in the German army, his grand father Roger (son of an Austrian guy who joined the French Foreign Legion in 1900) served bravely in 1940 as a tank crew chief, before being captured, he was one of the only three survivors of a brutal combat in Lorraine, where most of his tank squadron was destroyed. About 1 million French soldiers were killed in 6 weeks, and another million and a half ended up in German POW camps, so don’t tell him that the French gave up easily in 1940!
Roger was interned in Stalag XIII (yes the one of « Hogan’s Heroes ») and worked as a farmer in Bavaria up to 1945. Meanwhile, his brother in law, Gilbert was serving in French Marine Corps in China and was captured by the Japanese in the last stage of the war.
The German branch of the family was not really developed and now Stephan is working on it.

Hearing stories about American liberators developed also interest about their country, he was (still is ) fond of the old black and white American movies and TV series. In one of those, he saw a football team practicing, and his parents were devastated when he told them: « this is the sport I want to practice » we were in the sixties, but 20 years later, he played as an offensive tackle and defensive end, for six years.

After doing odds and ends for some 20 years Stephan became a tour guide in the D-day museum in Arromanches, in 2001 and since worked for different companies and joined Overlortour last year.