amberdreams: (Bum)
My lovely friend Lois has made this beautiful animation for Remembrance Sunday, which is going to be projected onto Sherringham Hall in Norfolk. With her permission, I'm sharing a minute's silence here.

World War I ended on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, 1918. People died on battlefields up to the last minute. Many died afterwards, from wounds. Millions died from the Spanish flu in the years that followed. These were sad and tragic times - and even though this war was so bloody and damaging, all war didn't end like it should have. People didn't learn.

So Remembrance Sunday is still relevant to us, and it doesn't matter that different countries have different days on which to do this - the more times we remember, the more we are drawn together in the hope that we can make the world a better place.

amberdreams: (Bum)
Seventy years ago today, the British army liberated Bergen Belsen. Richard Dimbleby, war correspondent from the BBC, reported on what they found and put his career on the line to force the BBC to broadcast it when they told him it was too awful to share.

The thing is, we need to keep sharing. We need to listen to the testimony of the survivors and the people who witnessed their suffering, because there are people in the world today who want to pretend this never happened. There are people who think that they are better than the Nazis and that killing a person who believes differently than they do is somehow a lofty ideal and a cleansing thing to be doing. It isn't.

There are people who think it's okay to say all immigrants should be 'sent back to where they came from' and don't see that this is just a tiny step away from the mentality that would send these immigrants to work camps and then death camps to be rid of them. It doesn't take much to get from one raging, irraltional fear and prejudice to a much more sinister version, and for the killing to start.

This isn't about any particular religion or belief, it's about being human, and retaining what is good about being human in the face of the kind of hate bred by intolerance.

Do not be silent today - read a page or two of Anne Frank's diary, join the one minute video campaign being run by the Anne Frank Trust - #notsilent

Listen to Richard Dimbleby's dispassionate report and remember. And think what it took him to record this terrible story - how many times he broke down and had to start again before they managed to get this report recorded. If you can't bear to watch, at least listen.


11.11.11

Nov. 11th, 2011 06:49 pm
amberdreams: (Default)
1914
 
War broke: and now the Winter of the world
With perishing great darkness closes in.
The foul tornado, centred at Berlin,
Is over all the width of Europe whirled,
Rending the sails of progress. Rent or furled
Are all Art's ensigns. Verse wails. Now begin
Famines of thought and feeling. Love's wine's thin.
The grain of human Autumn rots, down-hurled.
 
For after Spring had bloomed in early Greece,
And Summer blazed her glory out with Rome,
An Autumn softly fell, a harvest home,
A slow grand age, and rich with all increase.
But now, for us, wild Winter, and the need
Of sowings for new Spring, and blood for seed.
 
Wilfred Owen

11.11.11

Nov. 11th, 2011 06:49 pm
amberdreams: (Default)
1914
 
War broke: and now the Winter of the world
With perishing great darkness closes in.
The foul tornado, centred at Berlin,
Is over all the width of Europe whirled,
Rending the sails of progress. Rent or furled
Are all Art's ensigns. Verse wails. Now begin
Famines of thought and feeling. Love's wine's thin.
The grain of human Autumn rots, down-hurled.
 
For after Spring had bloomed in early Greece,
And Summer blazed her glory out with Rome,
An Autumn softly fell, a harvest home,
A slow grand age, and rich with all increase.
But now, for us, wild Winter, and the need
Of sowings for new Spring, and blood for seed.
 
Wilfred Owen

11.11.11

Nov. 11th, 2011 06:49 pm
amberdreams: (Default)
1914
 
War broke: and now the Winter of the world
With perishing great darkness closes in.
The foul tornado, centred at Berlin,
Is over all the width of Europe whirled,
Rending the sails of progress. Rent or furled
Are all Art's ensigns. Verse wails. Now begin
Famines of thought and feeling. Love's wine's thin.
The grain of human Autumn rots, down-hurled.
 
For after Spring had bloomed in early Greece,
And Summer blazed her glory out with Rome,
An Autumn softly fell, a harvest home,
A slow grand age, and rich with all increase.
But now, for us, wild Winter, and the need
Of sowings for new Spring, and blood for seed.
 
Wilfred Owen

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