Lest we forget

It's a shame that the only time we think of these words is once a year when November 11 approaches. Remembrance Day is one of the most important days of the year for me. As the child of Dutch immigrants, the realization has always been there for me that, were it not for the Canadian soldiers who liberated Holland, I would not be here. Perhaps my essence would be here in the world somehow; but the life I live and the family I have would not be here in this form. In some ways, it makes me even more connected to the fact that I'm lucky enough to be Canadian. I was even born on Canada Day. Think about that and try not to shed a silent tear during the significant but ultimately inadequate minute of silence we observe each year.

Today I saw a commercial that makes me cry every year, the Bell Canada commercial with the teenage boy who calls his grandfather from Dieppe to say thank you (http://www.bell.ca/remember). I don't think we can put too much importance on remembering those who have given their lives, their freedom, and their futures, to protect all that we hold dear today. As the people who fought in the world wars and in Korea slowly leave this world, the focus of Remembrance Day seems to be shifting to an examination of the ways in which we remember. They are focussing on the young and what they can do to honour the memories of those who are no longer with us.

My grandfather told me a story last week...I think I may have heard parts of it before; but it was not in my mind as something I already knew. He told me that, during the war, his parents hid American pilots who'd been shot down en route from Britain to Germany. They lived in a village in Friesland, a province in Holland very close to the northern German border and one of the first to be invaded when the war spread to Holland. My grandfather and his family kept in touch with the pilots they rescued. I remember meeting one of them. He passed away this year. My grandfather told me that his father received a letter of thanks from General Eisenhower. How special to know that, and to know the sacrifices, by people for people, that contributed to it.

I had an opportunity to go to Germany on business in March; and one of my colleagues, a young man about my age, took me to the concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen, one of the very few still existing in Germany. We stood inside the wall, near a plaque that told us where the camp's fence once stood. Through the trees on either side, stretching as far as I could see, was a marked line where nothing grew, the line where the boundary of that camp kept its prisoners inside, held captive because of their religion, sexuality, or nationality. I stood on black mud in front of the grave of Anne and Margot Frank, who died there just weeks before the camp was liberated by British soldiers. I read Anne's book when I was quite young and the story of that family has always been a tragedy to me. To stand on that ground, which I couldn't help but think was black from the tons of ashes produced there, was such a moving experience for me.

I look at the world today and know that it's not likely that I will ever have the chance to make that kind of sacrifice, to make a life and death difference to another human being. But I live my life according to the belief that things I do affect others; maybe that's all we can do, big or small. I wish that the people with the power in this world would do the same. I'm not naive enough to think that there can be a world completely without conflict; but when human conscience seems to be absent, to have suddenly disappeared, I think we're all in trouble.

I leave you with a token of thanks, presented to the City of Burlington from the City of Apeldoorn, Holland. We still remember too, and I for one will do my part to keep the memory alive.

Please remember, friends.