Whatever He Says

This photograph with our children, Peter and Brenda, was taken on their grandmother's 85th birthday, almost 5 years ago. On that day in June 1985, the church basement was filled with a crowd of her descendants: five children and their spouses, and many grandchildren with their spouses, and great grandchildren.  In a few months she'll be 90 and she is amazed that she has arrived at this great number of years. In her heart and mind it is so easy to slip back to a time that seems like only yesterday; her girlhood. E asier often, than it is to remember yesterday. Brenda Sheppard was a pretty, spirited 15 year old girl, with auburn hair and laughing blue eyes  in 1941.   She couldn't wait to leave school and get on with life. She would have loved to go into market gardening, putting into practice all that she had learned from her father, an engineer with British Rail. He grew prize vegetables in his glass houses and allotments when he wasn't working. But such o...

It was the evening after Remembrance Day and Paul and I had a quiet evening in. He said, "I've got an episode of Inspector George Gently saved on the P.V.R. do you want to watch it?" And I said, "Yes." The episode was called  Gently with Honour, and was about top secret psychological warfare experiments on a British military base during the Cold War, with a concurrent back story about a conspiracy of silence during an earlier war. Ex military himself, Inspector Gently, attended the funeral of a soldier from his old regiment. At the pub after the funeral, where the emphasis was on the brotherhood of the men in attendance, it was apparent that Gently was struggling with something that had happened involving the soldier whose funeral it was. He was chided by his ex superior officer for bringing up events that were past.  Throughout the episode, which involves a cover up of things gone too far in the more recent past, Gently struggles with his complicity in witn...

Seventy years ago, on June 6, 1944, as part of the biggest seaborne invasion in history, the Canadian Army landed on  Juno Beach  in Normandy. This week, especially, we remember that day of costly heroism and bloody sacrifice; events of such bravery in the face of terror that would be unimaginable were it not for the film and photographic record. The world wide web and media are rich sources of the stories of eye witnesses. We will not forget. I watched a veteran remember that day in the documentary: Normandy--Surviving D-Day. His name was Hal Bombeck. Hal had the option of changing the name of his religion on his dog tags in case he fell into enemy hands; it would have given him a better chance of surviving. He didn't change the name of his religion; in fact, he drew a large, yellow Star of David on the back of his jacket; with "The Bronx, New York;" so they'd have no trouble identifying him. Hal is Jewish. Jews were a special target of hatred by the Nazis,...

By Belinda A brief pause in the story of our own past harrowing family journey... One fact not often mentioned about Baby Boomers; my generation; is that we grew up with the shock waves of a war we never knew. I've written about some of those shock waves at various times here, but I've never mentioned the sound of sirens and the effect they had on Mum. A factory siren sounding the end of a work day, would take her back in a second to the terror of the bombing of Rotterdam. While her street survived, her city was all but demolished on May 14th 1940 during the German invasion of Holland. Second hand, we grew up knowing the terror of war. Today, listening to updates on the news of the bombing in Gaza and the rockets firing into Israel, I was thinking of a friend in Tel Aviv, a woman I came to know through my friend  Dave's blog , and whom I tried to meet up with last year in Israel. We didn't manage to connect face to face due to timing, but we connect occasionally...

Introduction by Belinda Last week I wrote about  Holocaust Education Week Coming Up  and about the Grand Opening Ceremony of The Maxwell and Ruth Leroy Holocaust Remembrance Garden. We are in Holocaust Education Week now, and I have permission to share this story, written by a woman of German descent, whose family was swept up in the tragedy that overtook Europe in that dark time. The story was shared in a speech made at the grand opening, by  Fran Kieselstein , the Chair of the Maxwell and Ruth Leroy Holocaust Education Committee. It had been sent to her by the woman who wrote it. I asked her for a copy and permission to share it and you will understand  why  when you read it.  Remembering Rainerchen I knew I had a brother who had died at the age of three. There were a few photos of him in the family album, a blond child sitting on my mother's knee. His name had been "Rainer," but on the rare occasions when she spoke of him, my mother always ...

By Belinda Memory fascinates me. Being a writer, one for whom the past is an endless source of material, I am often struck by the fact that an event can be remembered, or "seen" differently at different moments, by one person. And a person can be remembered at one moment for their flaws, along with the pain they caused. At another moment, their many redeeming qualities surface in memory: the person's humour, sensitive soul or work ethic.  It's as though light catches the sparkle or casts a shadow, depending on the angle it's shining from at a given moment. Ideally we would remember absolutely factually, and yet facts can be fluid in the mind; fraught with feelings and layers of complexities that are hard to understand and unravel. I have been deep in the shadows of  memory; facing hard truths with greater clarity and courage; sharper pain and deeper guilt. Of course, how can we ever truly understand or "know" the past? And yet, we try, whether it...

By Belinda The old ache surfaced recently. While walking sunny summer streets, with green leaves dancing playful and holly hocks nodding as I passed, with an incongruous mourning in my soul. There is no sense to this guilt, and yet it lies like undigested meat in my gut, an unwelcome, yet familiar inhabitant in the deepest recesses of my being. I weep in sorrow for a wrong not mine and seek a means of atonement, as though somehow that might make amends. But that would be impossible. I try hard to understand, to resolve the impossible dissonance.  The heartache is like an aching tooth that reminds you constantly of its presence. I pray, I read, I seek peace, and finally a glimmer comes.  Guilt is anger turned inward on oneself. Far easier to bear it personally than to turn it on ones you love, no matter what.    And understanding that, helps...a lot. Ephesians 3:20-21 New International Version (NIV) 20  Now to him who is able to do immeasu...

By Belinda I'm an "involved reader," and an "involved movie watcher" come to that. If you want to watch a movie with someone in peace and quiet--don't go with me; I laugh loudly, jump and cringe, grip the person next to me in scary parts--and cry. So it wasn't a surprise this morning as I read the final letters home of  Private Percy Winthrop (Winnie) McClare , regimental number 488944, 24th Battalion, Canadian InfantryRegiment; to "Mother," "Dad" and his sister Helen; that my eyes began to fill  unbidden with tears and a lump rose from somewhere deep in my chest and worked its way up to my throat. I knew--I don't know how-- that this boy of 19 would not be going home to Nova Scotia. His last letter home, dated April 16, 1917; addressed to "My dear Mother," ended with a request for her to not worry, but to "remember me in your prayer. I know you do that and it helps me a lot." He died May 5, 1917. It wa...

By Belinda I picked up an audio book from the library a couple of weeks ago: The War: An Intimate History, 1941-1945  by Geoffrey C. Ward and Ken Burns. Since I started listening to it, it has held me in its grip. I was born 5 years after the end of World War 2, but it affected my life because it touched and changed my parents' lives so deeply. I don't think I'll ever stop trying to understand what it was like for them. I'm not sure why it's so important to me--it was, after all, 70 years ago when it all began. I just know that it is; although the more I learn about war the more questions I have to which there seem to be no answers. The book follows the lives of several ordinary Americans through those years. Their experiences are pieced together through journals and letters, one of them the diary of a young American girl in the Philippines who spent the war in a Japanese internment camp. Courtships were whirlwind and...

During the 1930's and early 1940's, complex spiritual and political forces combined to create an environment ripe for the war that descended upon the Netherlands and upon Pieternella's family. Her father, Jan, was ill, with severe asthma and a failed bakery after a disastrous fire. He was disillusioned with the church, which had not helped their struggling family of eight children. Oma took in other people's laundry to help the family survive. *During the 1930's the Dutch National Socialist Movement--a fascist party (Nationaal-Socialistische Beweging in Nederland, NSB) was thriving and it became the only legal political party in Holland for most of the Second World War. After the invasion of Holland the party openly collaborated with the occupation forces and the membership grew to 100,000.* Pieternella's family was among the 100,000 who were party members and this may partly explain their welcome to the two young German sailors in the Kriegsmarine, docked in ...

My Mum: Pieternella Kaatje Janny Schipper, known as Nelly, was born in Rotterdam, into a world between two wars: World War 1 and World War 11. She arrived on December 15th 1926, three days after her mother Kaatje's 31st birthday. One of her earliest memories was of her twin brother Jan and sister Kaatje, being born May 28, 1928. At that time the family was living at their baker's shop. Nelly had three older siblings. Two sisters: Cornelia Adriana and Adriana Dingena, and a brother, Dingenis Pieter. Nelly's father, Jan Schipper, named the children, and each child's middle name was the first name of the next child. The twins each took one of Nelly's middle names: Kaatje Dina and Jan Adrian, although Kaatje was known as Kitty to her friends. The twins were followed by two more children, Dirk Louis and Alijda Marina Helena, making Jan and Kaatje's family of eight complete. The years leading up to the start of World War 11 were hard, with ten mouths to feed on the me...

This week, my friend Susan was in Quebec City, staying in a five star hotel with a spectacular view over the Old City and the St. Lawrence River. She was there with her little grandson Mikey--and her husband, Ron, who was attending the annual meeting of Canada Land Surveyors. On Friday evening, there was a ceremony and parade to mark the departure of some 2,000 soldiers of the Vandoos in August. Thousands of well wishers were reported in the Globe and Mail to have lined the parade route, but there was also a swarm of protesters that met them at the end of the parade route, shouting anti-war slogans and urging the soldiers to desert. Susan was an eye witness to the parade from her 10th floor hotel room and emailed me some thoughts, which she gave me her permission to post on the blog. ___________________________________________________________ Friday, June 22nd 2007 From Susan Stewart There is supposed to be a parade at 8:30 this evening in Quebec City of some 2000 soldiers who are abou...