Today is Armistice Day -- also known as Remembrance Day-- when we commemorate the armistice signed between the Allies of World War I and Germany at Compiègne, France, for the cessation of hostilities on the Western Front, which took effect at exactly 11am — the "eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month" of 1918. While this was the official date to mark the end of the First World War, it has since become the day on which many allied nations rememeber all members of the armed forces who were killed during the Second World War and in all conflicts since.
I was often taken by my father as a child to the ceremony at the Cenotaph in London's Whitehall, which is the official memorial for the so-called Unknown Soldier. My father was a Flight Leiutenant in the Royal Airforce during the Second World War. Although he didn't see active service, he was a member of the Association of Jewish Ex-service Men, called AJEX, and marched past the Senataph the Sunday following 11th November each year for a special Jewish ceremony.
Today is a particularly significant anniversary, because it was 90 years ago, two years after the end of the First World War, that the white-marble Cenotaph was unveilled right in the middle of Whitehall, halfway between Trafalgar Square and the Houses of Parliament.
Millions of young men, on all sides, many as young as 15, died in these two terrible world wars. Ironically, the first was dubbed 'the war to end all wars', only to be followed 22 years later by a war which culminated in the use of the nuclear bomb.
In Britain, specially made poppy badges are sold to raise money for injuured soldiers and bereaved families. People commonly wear these on their lapels during the week leading up to Armstice Day itself.
This is an important day, which has much meaning for me. I was only born 12 years after the last person was gassed in the concentration camps. We should never forget the soldiers you gave their lives to stop Nazi Germany from taking over the world. It won't be long before no one is still alive who experienced either world wars. But we should also never forget those soldiers on all sides of these and every conflict, who have lost their lives in war.
At 11am today, millions of us here in Europe stood for a two-minute silence to relfect on all those fallen soldiers. I hope the practice endures long after all those involved has passed on. We cannot ever afford to forget the horrors of war.
May you, my dear Yael, never know what war is, only having to enduring it in history lessons.
But on a lighter note, today is also St. Martin's day. Don't ask me its historical significance. But what I do know is that it is a night when people go out to goose feasts. Your grandfather is just about to leave for one himself. I love goose. Bon appetite!
Grandpa Jonathan
Prague, Czech Republic
