DURING the October break, we managed to visit my wife’s family in Germany. Emotional reunions took place, as Covid and other challenges had meant years had gone by since our previous meeting.
It was also a chance to visit the grave of Kate’s father, who died when she was young.
As we were leaving the cemetery, I noticed a section in the corner with many gravestones, all the same design. It was a war cemetery.
I stood before these silent gravestones; row upon row, each one representing a life cut short in a war to end all wars, which it didn’t.
On the other side of the path, there were more war graves, more lives cut short, this time from the later world war. As I read the inscriptions here, I realised that most who lay on this side had been born in the years the others had been killed. A generation born during war had died in war.
Then I wondered, do I pay my respects, as I always do when I come across war graves? My emotions were conflicted, these were the graves of those who had been enemies.
But beside me stood my German wife. Katharina is her beautiful full German name, even though we call her Kate. She now feels just as Scottish as German. Her grandfather had been one of those enemies. He fought in the war as a young man. He could have lain in this war cemetery, but fortunately he survived the war, although he was captured on the Eastern Front and spent many years in a POW camp in Siberia.
Kate loved her grandfather dearly. He lived to the old age of 92 and was a huge part of her early life. Although I never met him, I know him through the stories my wife has told about him; his kindness and generosity, his loving nature.
But he never spoke of the war to her. The horrors and trauma he experienced remained unspoken. He couldn’t bear any war films or violence of any kind. He immersed himself in music and the simple joys of a life he unexpectedly and thankfully lived.
The son he had on his return from captivity was Kate’s father.
By our side in the cemetery were our two children, part of us both. How to explain to them the hatred and horror of war, which had caused their great-grandfathers on different sides of their family to be mortal enemies?
My God, I thought, will we never learn? The tragedy and suffering of invasion and war stalks our continent once again. The hatred that spawns genocide is again being planted.
Words are easy. Evil needs to be confronted and I honour those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice in doing so. But war itself is also an evil. When we reach it, we have failed.
With these thoughts, I looked at our children. They are evidence, I thought, that hatred can be vanquished; they exist as a result of love between two families who once were at war with each other.
I realised that was the answer to my conflicting emotions, as I stood before the war graves of former enemies. War dehumanises but in remembrance, if we can restore the common humanity which war seeks to destroy, we can plant hope in place of hate.
I know that is easy for me to say. I understand war causes suffering that is difficult to forget and forgive. But without healing, there is no end to it.
And so I stood with my wife and kids for a moment of remembrance, with hopeful prayers for the future. I will do the same this Sunday, to honour and remember those from my home town, but also for all those who have suffered in wars.
My hope is that one day, we will learn its lessons and common humanity will prevail.
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