Only five years after the end of Word War II, the mayor of Montbéliard (my hometown in eastern France) and the mayor of Ludwigsburg in western Germany started talking about making "sister cities" out of their respective localities. The choir of traditional folk singing I ended up conducting played a significant role in this local Franco-German rapprochement, by establishing a partnership with a German orchestra of accordions from Ludwigsburg. 

Can you spot me in this picture, taken in western Germany's Black Forest? Here's a clue: I'm fiddling with one of my very first cameras, an Orenac 24x36.

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