I've recently read two memoirs about young people in Germany during and immediately after the Second World War. German Boy, A Child in War by Wolfgang W. E. Samuel came out a while ago, back in 2000, while Waltraud, A True Story of Growing up in Nazi Germany, came out in 2023 and is written by the protagonist's daughter, Tammy Borden.
There’s a seven-year age gap between the protagonists. Waltraud is born in 1927 and Wolfgang in 1935. Both stories have a ‘happy ending’ when they find their way to the USA. Wolfgang leaves Bremerhaven in January, 1951 crossing the Atlantic on the USNS George W. Goethals. Waltraud leaves in September of the same year on the USS General R. M. Blatchford. Both arrive in New York.
My parents, meanwhile, left Bremerhaven on the Beaverbrae in July, 1953 bound for Quebec. They’d been born in 1918 and 1919 and thus experienced the war, not as children, but as adults who ended up as Soviet POWs. With Canada’s Remembrance Day on the horizon, once again I feel the familiar mixed emotions. Remembrance Day does not address the horrors of war. It’s about remembering the courage of soldiers, allied soldiers.
It doesn't remember the others who wore no uniform. Those affected by hunger, disease, and loss … loss of home, of family, of careers, of education and of hope. These two memoirs remind us that it’s not just soldiers in uniforms who have courage. It's not just soldiers who suffer and die. War fails everyone.
No comments:
Post a Comment