Remembrance Day

 

It's Nov. 10 and tomorrow is Remembrance Day.

Too many people have no real idea of what Remembrance Day actually is.  

In Canada, it is a day for *remembering*.  For acknowledging the people who were called to war, and ultimately gave their lives.  Some people refer to them as 'heroes', and in some ways that is true.

But let me tell you about my dad.

My father was born here, in Canada, in 1919.  His family identified as German although their immigration papers said they left Europe from Belarus.  However, they spoke German, and had relatives in Germany as well.  (All contact with them was cut off during the war and afterwards - long story.)

So as a family who left Europe, for whatever reason, arriving first in the US (because my grandfather had a brother already living in the US), then making their way north to the Canadian prairies, then west to here, they managed to acquire some land, build a house and begin farming.  

The family was 'large' with 8 children, 3 girls, 5 boys.  They worked hard to make a life for themselves.  

Dad's mom died (breast cancer) when he was 10.  He was the last child in the family and the year he was to begin school, the school house burned down.  So his older siblings taught him how to draw his signature and read a bit.  But he was illiterate, not because he was stupid (he wasn't) but because he never had the opportunity to learn.

When the war started, it became...difficult...if you had German roots.  No matter you left Germany.  No matter you had whole heartedly given your life to come to a new country, put down roots, you were viewed with suspicion (ditto if you were Japanese or Italian background.)

(One person told me years later that they took pride - yes they used that word - in harassing the Germans in this community during the war.  Given my father would have been one of the people they were proudly harassing, I didn't join in their 'proud' moment.)

At any rate.  My dad, born of German speaking immigrants, experienced discrimination during the years leading up to the war, in spite of the fact that he kept his head down.  He still had that anglicized German name, was tall, blue eyed and pretty much fit the mould of an 'Aryan', and determined to avoid confrontations.  He stuck to his farming, then mining (he worked at the gold mine in Wells, BC), his music playing (the boys made guitars and violins for the boys and mandolins for the girls) and they would play at community dances.

And then...war.

Did my father run to enlist?  No, he did not.  He was, at heart, a pacifist.  But eventually it was his turn to sign up, so he did.  

I acquired his military records at one point, and the enlistment person basically said my father was 'stupid' but could be a good 'private'.  Not in so many words, but...

So he joined, in spite of the German connection, and was sent to the Aleutians.  I'm quite sure the army felt that someone with close ties to Germany, like my father, was best sent to the west and out of the way.  But the war dragged on.  And on.  And on.  And eventually the allies needed cannon fodder for D-Day.  So my dad got sent to England to be part of the D-Day forces.

He survived, obviously.  He managed to survive the Juno Beach landing, make his way east to the Netherlands as part of the Canadian forces who liberated Holland.  And came home.

When he demobbed, he took all his medals, and gave them back.  He took no pride in what happened 'over there'.  He didn't feel he was any kind of 'hero'.  He almost never spoke of the war, and if we kids (my brother and I) asked him questions he would recoil and mutter "you don't want to know about that" - if he said anything at all.

(He also took his hunting rifles and gave them away to a nephew and he never shot another thing again, ever.)

My father-in-law also served, as did family friends.  So when Remembrance Day comes around, I remember.  I remember my father and the other people I knew who served in WWII and managed to survive.  But I also am well aware of the thousands of people who did not.

And on Remembrance Day, it is those who did not survive that we honour.  

When I see posts on social media screaming about the ugly antifa - I remember my father and the others who went to war to fight against fascism.  The original 'antifa'.  Who fought to preserve democracy.  Freedom from tyrants.  Equality (if not equity - we still need to work on that.)

I have never, and will never write obscenities on the Canadian flag and call the current Prime Minister a tyrant or dictator, and scream about my freedoms being curtailed.  

Because I remember.