Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Remembrance Day


Ok, sorry about the header thing, I hate it too, you know how it hangs off the side... I'll have it figured out soon. Well, today is remembrance day and me and my family like every year, attended the cenotaph. One thing that really made me think this year, was my monologue  that I had to present at my school's remembrance day presentation. It is part of the story/testimony of Eva Braun:

"When I heard about freedom, I was also very frightened. What would we find? 

We had survived, and we had to return to civilization, but how did one behave 

  in a normal world? We were two young girls who had nothing. Who would look 

after us? What would we do? 

 

There was excitement, but our feelings were mixed. We were afraid. It's hard 

to describe and explain these feelings of simultaneous fear and joy. That was 

our next stage. Now, after liberation, what were we going to do? We had 

nothing. We were frightened that we might not have anyone left in the world. 

We needed someone to look after us and take care of us. And to a great 

extent I was looking after my little sister and another girl. More than anything 

else I wanted someone to look after me and relieve me of the burden of caring 

for the girls, so that I wouldn't have to be responsible, so that I would be under 

an adult's protection. It's hard to explain it, but I wanted someone to look after 

me, I wanted someone to lean on. It turned out that freedom is relative to a 

very great extent.  

Worry about the future weighed heavily on me. We had to build our future, but 

how does one build a future?" 


This testimony made me realize that so many children have stories like this one. Their parents leave and go off to war, they fight and die, and their children are left in the world with sometimes no one to look after them. I am so thankful for the sacrifice that so many men and women made, so that our country can have the freedoms it does today. Today we remember. 

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