Liberation Day

On Thursday evening, we noticed some currently serving Military officers gathering near a World War II memorial near our house...

 May fourth is the date in Holland which the Dutch people remember the dead.  On this particular day, The Dutch people remember all the people who have died ( both civilians and Armed Forces) since World War II.  At eight o'clock P.M. on May 4th, all cars halt, all people take pause and not a sound can be heard on the streets for two straight minutes all across the country.  To read more about remembering the dead, you can click here.  It really is amazing; we also  paused for two straight minutes and you could have heard a pin drop, it was so quiet.

On May 5th, when most of my American friends are celebrating Cinco De Mayo in the U.S., the Dutch people are celebrating Liberation Day to commemorate when they were liberated by Canadian and Polish troops in World War II.  There were Dutch flags flying everywhere!:)

My street

Coming from the U.S. where World War II is talked about,  I can not fathom the horrors of war which played out in Europe.  There was no actual fighting on the continental U.S. soil.   It is a different experience here in Holland.  World War II was fought in their country and all the countries in Europe. There are scars of war in the shrapnel still embedded in buildings here as well as the plaques that lay in front of homes where Jewish people were taken away never to be seen again. Memories of the fighting still run deep from people who lived through it and have passed those memories on to their own children and grandchildren.  To read some more about the history of Dutch Liberation day, click here.  Let us hope and pray that we learn from history and not let it repeat itself.

Doei!