Remember

[Wirelizard]

A good friend of mine is German - we met when he was over here doing a Bachelor's degree as a foreign student and we're still close more than a decade later - and I took him to our local Remembrance Day ceremony one Nov. 11th when he was here.

We had several long discussions after about the nature of remembrance and the public outlook on the World Wars here (Canada) and in Germany. Obviously quite a different thing for them, even the Great War. He was in the (West then unified) German military for a few years just after high school, and he said the nearest thing extant in Germany is private services at various times for certain regiments that trace their regimental history/heritage back to units that fought in either of the World Wars, but those are not public occasions, just regimental observances conducted in private, at historic barracks or similar.


Remembrance Day 2012 V: Cenotaph & Flag by WireLizard, on Flickr

Our local cenotaph above, effectively the main cenotaph for the city, although each municipal area usually has it's own as well. This one also happens to be on the lawn of the provincial Legislature, so it's effectively the provincial cenotaph as well. The Canadian Navy has their own memorial on the naval base just west of town, but they always have a strong presence at this ceremony too - we get the band and the ass't commander of RCN Pacific Command.

[The Breaker]

We had a memorial in the suburb of Sydney where I grew up. It is sandstone and has a canon on the top, as a boy I thought it was an ice cream cone that had fallen over. Each town in Australia has a memorial to the men who served.

[smirnoff]

I live in a tiny village in Gloucestershire.
Just behind our cottage on a small triangle of ground is the village war memorial with 12 names on it.
There are surnames on this memorial of families that have lived in this village and area for over 400 years and who gave their men in WW1 and WW2 for their country.
Last Sunday my wife told me that the village gathered at the memorial and the bugler played the last post.
We will never forget.

[smirnoff]

I was at Magdelen College, Oxford a month ago.
On the memorial stone, and in the memorial book, are the names of all from the college that had fallen.
These names included all that had studied there; our German friends may like to know that every fallen German student is listed and honoured.

[Big Martin]

I'm not sure where my WW1 ancestors are marked on memorials around here. My great-great-uncle on my father's side is named on the Thiepval Memorial as he died of wounds on the Somme and he's somewhere amongst the "unknown" graves when his remains were moved post-war. On my mother's side, her uncle deserted as he was in Ireland and didn't like what they were being told to do, re-enlisted under an assumed name and died right at the end of the war after an infection set in following a fairly routine operation. I think he's listed (under the assumed) name in the village he claimed to be from rather than his home village of Chedworth. I've seen a memorial plaque that listed his real name and "served as" when we cleared my grandmother's house, but I think that got passed to my Mum's cousin as he's the repository for Juggins family history these days.
From WW2 my Dad's half-uncle is in Ranville cemetery, but where his name is in Bristol I don't know.
Normally, it's the village memorial for me, although we don't have connections beyond my parents moving here in the 1950s, I do feel that I'm nearly there with the "old village" folks. All I've got to do is get the family name on a street here (like many others, long gone, that I used to know). 

[fastolfrus]

WWI & WWII are not the only ones commemmorated - Hull has a memorial to the fallen from the Boer Wars.

Then there are the "thankful villages" - the few places that didn't need a memorial:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15671943

[Koppi]

Thanks a lot guys for the explanations: "The red poppies probably came about because of a poem."

I have to told this to my wife; we both were wondering about that.

@ Smirnoff

" .....

I was at Magdelen College, Oxford a month ago.
On the memorial stone, and in the memorial book, are the names of all from the college that had fallen.
These names included all that had studied there; our German friends may like to know that every fallen German student is listed and honoured ...."


That's great. Reconciliation across borders.

Here in Germany we called the day Volkstrauertag (day of mourning) - and I thinks it's good so, because of our very special history. But it's a day - and it is today the 18.11.- , that is not present in the memory of most of the people of Germany.

The origin of this memorial day is also connected with the First World War.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkstrauertag