In my family, we hardly spoke about "the war". Both my grandmother and my mother survived the Nuremberg bombing. But it wasn't easy. Their tales were not easily told and mixed with so much "survivor's remorse" or guilt that oftentimes the subject was avoided because it brought on such heart ache.
I, of course, could only imagine what they went through. Years later while visiting Nuremberg, I had opportunities to see the bomb shelters many Germans fled to during the war. One room "caves". I know they had to forage for food often living days or weeks on potatoes and bread. My mom once told me that it became their job to pick up body pieces for identification.
I can only imagine what that must have been like.
My mom is almost 90. She emigrated to Canada shortly after the war. My grandmother followed a few years later after I was born.
Here is a picture of my mom taken a couple of years ago! That's me, on the left! We were attending the 100th aniversary of the Titantic sinking.
Since then my mother has been diagnosed with lung cancer which has spread to both lungs and her spine.
The point of this post, is to remember those that not only fought in the war(s) but those who actually lived through it! These people did not ask for war. Nor did they condone whatever actions war had brought them or asked of them to accept. The innocent are literally caught in the crosshairs of a maniacal few, their lives changed forever.
I pay tribute to my mom and grandmother, the children in Dafur, the child soldiers of Somalia, the innocent women and children in Iran and Afghanistan.
And to the women and children, of the many men asked to serve their country, whose loved one was never returned home.
The famous "Wait For Me Daddy" photo by Claude P. Dettloff in New Westminster, Canada taken on October 1, 1940. The picture says it all.
God Bless those that are still fighting and especially those living through it as we speak!
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