This week we remembered the 100th anniversary of the beginning of the First World War, the most horrific conflict the world had seen to date only to be followed by an even worse one 25 years later. There is a saying: it takes hours to declare a war and 90 years (three generations) to overcome it.
I was born in the north eastern German province of Mecklenburg in 1940. My mother managed to cross into, what was to become the British Sector, with my one year old brother and me five hours, before the Russians arrived at that border on April 29, 1945 and closed it.
Five times I had returned to East Germany and always left with the grief that my family and friends were imprisoned. On August 12, 1961 I arrived in Vancouver reuniting with cousins. Our joy was chilled when the TV news showed the beginnings of the Berlin Wall and we knew then that the prison doors had fallen shut.
28 years later that wall came down and the world sighed relief. Horst Mann was there and brought a piece of the wall. I celebrated with 26 Bowen Islanders from 13 countries. It is now 25 years later and no one could have imagined the effect this event had. It thawed the chill of the cold war and Eastern Europeans also, not only Germans, can now again enjoy freedom and democracy.
The world is a better place for it, a comforting thought on a dark day like November 11.
