Waterbottle with a story

**PowderMonkey** · 01-04-2021, 05:14 PM

Back in 2004 I bought a 'coconut' wood laminate water bottle from a friend in Normandy. He had picked it up at a vide grenier just before he sold it to me(15euros).
It wasn't perfect, but it suited my needs. It was a while after I acquired it, that I realised there was something loose inside the bottle. Upon investigating a rolled up piece of paper came out. There was something written on it in French. I quizzed my friend about it and he swears blind that he didn't put it in there and must have been in there when he bought it.

The note is written in bad French, and gives details of it's previous owner, and how as part of an SS Training Battalion found himself in the Falaise Gap. Fearing he would loose his mind, he drank the contents of his bottle which was cider. There was death and destruction all around him but he survived. He says that after the war, he left the bottle outside during a hard frost. The water in the bottle froze and consequently split the laminate covering. The covering is split clearly at the rear of the bottle.

Sadly, I cannot make out the owners name, but I think this bottle must have held some sentimental significance for him to have saved it, kept it with him after the war. I know we always say to ourselves "buy the item, not the story", however in this case the story most definitely came with the item.