New Delhi: Harold Terens (100), a World War II veteran, is getting married to his 96-year-old fiancée Jeanne Swerlin on Saturday in the French town of Carentan-les-Marais, where he fought as a soldier against the Nazis.
Terens was honoured on the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings — when tens of thousands of soldiers landed on five beaches at Normandy in northern France — in a ceremony organised a few kilometres away from where he is getting married.
The wedding will be followed by a celebration with his loved ones in a small group and a parade of veterans in the centre of Carentan, “depending on his possible fatigue”, Sarah Pasquier, the town hall’s representative for D-Day commemorations, told French media.
Terens, who lives with Swerlin in Boca Raton, Florida, was awarded the French Legion of Honour by President Emmanuel Macron in 2019.
This will be the war veteran’s second marriage. He spent 70 years with first wife Thelma, with whom he raised three children until her death in 2018.
In 2021, he was introduced by a friend to Swerlin, a widow.
The couple grew up in New York. Swerlin in Brooklyn and Terens in the Bronx.
