We owe it to the future to remember
By Dan Rolph
This issue of the Exeter Examiner is our special Remembrance Day edition, marking a day where we take time from our lives to reflect on the past while remembering the importance of pushing for peace in our present and our future.
As years pass and the memories of the most recent truly global conflicts fade, I worry that we are losing a connection to the lessons of the past that are vital to the act of remembrance. I think we owe it to each other, and to future generations, to ensure we do our best to continue sharing the stories of those who lived through the worst of times.
In the words of the philosopher George Santayana, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
With that in mind, I’d like to share some of the experiences of my grandmother, Gertrude, from her time living through the Second World War.
My grandmother grew up in the town of Neunen in the Netherlands – the same idyllic Dutch town Vincent van Gough called home for several years that served as the inspiration for several of the famous painter’s works.
That Dutch town was one of many that changed suddenly when the Nazis invaded the Netherlands, which had declared neutrality when war broke out in Europe. The invasion was swift, and the Netherlands surrendered five days after German forces invaded. Their occupation would last five years.
As my grandmother put it, she and her family grew numb to the realities of living under the rule of their fascist occupiers. There were curfews, controls on the population and rations. The Nazis controlled everything from food to clothing, as the provisions had all been moved outside of the country, and Dutch citizens had to use coupons to receive basic goods in the rare .
The horrors of war were a part of everyday life for the people like my grandmother. Her childhood friends were shot and killed as they simply existed in the middle of the conflict, and my grandmother had multiple near-death experiences herself. She sometimes described the “singing” noise she heard as a bomb struck near her, wounding her and leaving her deaf in one ear for the rest of her life.
Then, there was a moment where she became the direct target of the Nazis in her village. As she rode her father’s new bicycle home, she opted to take back roads since at that time there
were no other bicycles in the town, and she could attract unwanted attention. During that ride home, she was seen by several German soldiers. They demanded that she stop, but she kept riding, fearing they’d take her father’s bike.
In response, those soldiers shot her twice – once in the neck and once in the leg. She said she didn’t feel the pain of those wounds until she got back home, and she carried the scars from that interaction for the rest of her life.
Most of us can only struggle to imagine how we would get through life in such circumstances, needing to find the strength to carry on while knowing that even the simplest journey could put our lives at risk. Stories like my grandmother’s remind us of the importance of holding our freedoms close. They highlight the bravery in the choices made by everyday heroes when they stand up to defend those freedoms, whether they’re civilians trapped in war or they’re soldiers standing as the bulwark that protects them.
Though the world has not fallen into complete global conflict since the 1940s, the unfortunate truth is that our world continues to struggle with war. Today, conflict continues in Ukraine and the Middle East, amongst other places. The lessons that are learned through the stories of those who live through conflict cannot be forgotten, even if they feel distant from us due to geography or the passage of time.
And in a world that feels increasingly tumultuous and unpredictable, remembrance must be more than a moment of silence. It is a responsibility to carry these stories forward, to honour those who served and sacrificed, and to work for a future in which fewer families have such stories to tell. We owe it to those who came before us to remember, and to those who come after us to put those lessons into practice.
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