The Silence

Sent to me yesterday afternoon by a dear and special old Navy friend who may know the inside of me better than any other human does. Else how and why would he have known to send it. Or maybe he had no idea --

About six miles from Maastricht, in the Netherlands, lie buried 8,301 American soldiers who died in the battles to liberate Holland in the Fall and Winter of 1944/45. Each grave in the cemetery, as well as those in the Canadian and British military cemeteries, has been adopted by a Dutch family who mind it, decorate it, and keep alive the memory of an allied soldier they have adopted. Annually, on "Liberation Day," memorial services are held for "the men who died to liberate Holland." The day concludes with a concert. The final piece is always "Il Silenzio," a memorial piece commissioned by the Dutch and first played in 1965 on the 20th anniversary of Holland's liberation. It has been the concluding piece of the memorial concert ever since.

in 2008 the soloist was a 13-year-old Dutch girl, Melissa Venema, backed by André Rieu and the Royal Orchestra of the Netherlands. This beautiful concert piece is based upon the original version of taps and was composed by Italian composer Nino Rossi.

Watch at full screen… 5 minutes… Volume on … http://www.flixxy.com/trumpet-solo-melissa-venema.htm

Critical comment about my feelings from anyone who did not live through it, even from the safety of a North American schoolboy, as I did and was, would be neither invited nor welcome. The propaganda was fierce, the hatred was vehement and lasting, against America’s enemies in World War II. I am not over it yet, and may never be as long as I live; I cannot help it. A major shock of my life was finding out just a few years ago, that my own Weller heritage is not from England as all my life I had been told and believed, but from Germany, and I am still working through that in my own personal acceptance of my own self.

The horror and atrocity that was The Third Reich is beyond belief even to this day, seventy years on. I have seen, and do occasionally watch on YouTube, documentaries from that era of human history, the late 1930s and first half of the 1940s. I watch in fascination because it was the center stage of my formative years as a boy, and I was carefully taught. The adoration and enthusiasm for Hitler that I see in the faces of the crowds of German people horrify me. In my years of doing business in Australia, one of my clients, associates, friends was the Verschoor family of three brothers who emigrated to Australia after the war to create a new home for their mother and father. Bill, Leo and Wally are dead now, but in many visits with them, both in Australia and here in the United States, I got to know them, especially Leo, the oldest who was about my age, and heard him and his brothers tell how they felt as boys, seeing their father brutally beaten up by Nazi thugs in the street in front of their home in Holland. It seems no longer relevant to those who’ve heard me going on about it, my feelings that among the adoring crowds waving the Nazi salute would undoubtedly have been cousins of mine, distant but nevertheless flesh and blood; God in heaven forbid it. I am still in the stage of coming to grips with the fact of my German heritage. And as I read the piece above about the care the Dutch give for the graves of our American boys, eight thousand three hundred one young Americans who died fighting the Germans to free Holland and the world and me from Nazi brutalization, my heart is touched and I am deeply moved.

Mindful that I am a product of my time and place in history, I still fight inside myself to rid me of the revulsion that may prevent me from ever appreciating my family heritage. What comes to mind is this song from the 1949 musical.

"You've Got To Be Carefully Taught"

(Lyrics from South Pacific.)

You've got to be taught to hate and fear,

You've got to be taught from year to year,

It's got to be drummed in your dear little ear,

You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught to be afraid

Of people whose eyes are oddly made,

And people whose skin is a diff'rent shade,

You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught before it's too late,

Before you are six or seven or eight,

To hate all the people your relatives hate,

You've got to be carefully taught!

I have been carefully taught. My hate is not of people whose eyes are oddly made or whose skin is a different shade. Rather, it’s very different and very difficult, something about a mirror.

This seems an odd thing to pop out of the blue. But I hope that someone will watch and listen to the girl and the orchestra honoring our boys, and appreciate as I did and do. Or, I may decide only to reflect and never to tap “publish.” I should get over it? Want to trade places?