People from Hawaii and around the world expressed shock and sadness Monday when they learned flames had engulfed Notre Dame Cathedral.
“I broke into tears,” said Kieko Matteson, a University of Hawaii-Manoa associate professor of history. “It’s so, so terrible. It is one of the most important symbols of France, and for the French people it has to be pretty devastating and very demoralizing.”
Matteson, who specializes in French history and French environmental history, had visited the cathedral two years ago, taking her eldest daughter to the top of the iconic structure, whose construction began in 1163.
She said they felt the weight of history as they observed the stunning Gothic stained-glass rose windows, the flying buttresses and the gargoyles.
Matteson made a special note of the massive wood beams, which would have come from 200- to 300-year-old oaks that could have been living in the French forest as far back as the ninth century.
“To think they were destroyed in an accidental fire in 2019 seems like a cruel joke, really.”
Closer to the tragedy were Kailua’s Treena Shapiro and her husband, Brandon Miyamoto, who were staying in a hotel near the cathedral. They were sightseeing in Paris when a friend from Hawaii texted them about the fire.
Shapiro, a former Honolulu Star-Bulletin and Honolulu Advertiser reporter, said she and Miyamoto had walked by the cathedral a few days ago but didn’t go in because the line was too long. On Monday she snapped a photo of it on the way to a Seine River boat cruise that was scheduled to pass by Notre Dame.
As it turns out, the cruise was diverted away from Notre Dame, and Shapiro could take took photos only from a distance.
“Tragic,” she said. “Unbelievable.”
Back on Oahu, Kathryn Hoffmann, UH professor of French literature, was tearing up as she viewed the catastrophe on television.
“It’s shattering to watch,” she said.
Hoffmann said it’s impossible to overstate the importance of Notre Dame to Paris and France. It is the center of the city, the point from which every district is measured in distance.
“It has outlasted all the French wars, the revolution. It is the subject of much art and literature,” she said.
Hoffmann recalled living in Paris for several years, and during one of them she walked by Notre Dame every day, stopping in and going to the top of the cathedral dozens of times.
“Just to see the sunlight coming through the rose windows was one of my favorite things to do,” she said.
Today Hoffmann incorporates examples of the religious art and architecture of Notre Dame in her classroom lectures.
With the cathedral still burning, French President Emmanuel Macron vowed to rebuild and to conduct a fundraising campaign to finance the project. He said the campaign would extend beyond France’s borders.
Hoffmann said she would be willing to contribute.
“I can’t imagine Paris without Notre Dame,” she added.
Star-Advertiser reporter Leila Fujimori contributed to this report.
