Remembrance Day
This weekend we celebrate 80 years since the liberation of The Netherlands, May 5th 1945.
Remembrance Day, and the TV is full of war stories.
As it should be, a lifetime having passed by since the world wars. Lest we forget. A flickering black and white image plays on the TV screen, celluloid memories of familiar-looking streets, in unfamiliar times.
1945. A column of German prisoners of war are led down a country road, hands on heads in the posture of surrender, heading to some internment camp and an uncertain future. From our end of the time machine, clarity: wiederaufbau is just around the corner. A government in Bonn, Volkswagen, and prosperity.
The look on their faces says otherwise. A group of British soldiers loiter at the side of the road, smoking. One aims a frown at a luckless PoW, a lanky teenager with sandy-blonde hair who’s trying not to make eye contact. Words are exchanged, a kick is aimed at the luckless German, and in a few seconds a fracas erupts, fists swinging but only on one side. The German falls to the ground. Kicks rain in on his head and torso until an officer intervenes, with a shout, at a distance.
It’s over, bar some parting words. One of the squaddies bends over, shiny black hair slicked back, issuing a few acrid remarks before flicking his cigarette butt at the prostrate soldier.
That’s it. We can’t hear the words. We have no context. No name, rank or serial number. The location could be any provincial road in the southern Netherlands.
To modern eyes, this might look like a war crime, mistreatment of prisoners. From another equally anachronistic perspective, a clear case of PTSD. We don’t know what these guys have been through. Is this an example of unfair summary justice, taking it out on the uniform, not the person? Or a very personal reckoning, payback for a loss of a dear colleague in battle?
We can’t know. The camera pans away as if in shame, and follows the line of prisoners down the road until the picture flickers out and is replaced by a stream of sideways words, empty frames, then darkness. The trail goes cold.
I wrote a comment on your Kingsday piece, which would have been more appropriate here I suppose. In terms of your description of the film footage, obviously it's not exactly heart-warming to see soldiers from your own country deriding and ill-treating enemy prisoners of war, but in the circumstances I think it's understandable, and even forgiveable. The Nazis behaved abominably in the Netherlands in WW2, as in all areas of Europe under German occupation. I would definitely have aimed a kick, if not a bullet, at any German POWs in that situation. Perhaps I am naturally bellicose. I used to envy my brother his membership of the Cadet Corps at school, where he had the opportunity to steal ammunition from the stores. This was reinforced when I watched the Lindsay Anderson film 'If' with him. He assured me the sentiments expressed in the film were widely shared. (Many years later I joined a gun club with a friend of mine who was keen on shooting. I once nearly shot myself in the foot there, literally. I blasted a hole in the shelf in the booth where I was reloading, but fortunately not in my foot) Perhaps I wouldn't have been such an asset to the Armed Forces. But yes, I do believe in the notion of the just war, in the sense of the moral rightness of fighting back against an aggressor. Unfortunately none of the wars currently being waged throughout the world qualifies as 'just'.