History Assignment
The 8th of May is a French holiday with a historic significance - it marks the end of World War II in Europe, when the Chief-of-Staff for the German Armed Forces signed an unconditional surrender in France.
Other European nations, however, celebrate this event on the 9th of May as they were following the British time at the moment of surrender.
To the French, it was a day of the restoration of glory to their home nation, and they celebrate it with military parades around the Arc de Triomphe each year. Photos of the celebration for the year 2007 are shown below.
The Germans, however, viewed this date as a day of defeat, until, in 1985, when the West German President declared it as a day of independence from Nazi rule.
As a visitor to this country (coming to Paris to work doesn't make me feel like a "worker" to the country) and someone born 2 generations after the war, this date may seem to be just another holiday. However, that's not what I feel.
History contains lots of lessons for us to learn. Not in the sense of all those words written in textbooks, but events in the past, where actions lead to consequences. World War II wasn't fought simply for the sake of showing off military superiority or for greed of domination - it was also a war of racism.
Hitler believed that his people (he was Austrian, but seemed to portray himself as a German more than anything else) were of a superior race, and hence the superior-should-be-ruling-the-world theory, which he spread to the rest of the nation.
In the midst of the war, he had numerous opportunities to exterminate the Jews, the race he blamed the most for the cause of poverty and whatnot. The Holocaust should have been one of the most painful lessons ever learnt, a lesson that says racism only bring about sufferings. Yet racism is still abound in a country that is celebrating its liberation from oppression 62 years down the road.
Maybe the 8th of May is just another reason for a holiday, meant for locals to relax and for tourists to enjoy a mlitary parade.
Other European nations, however, celebrate this event on the 9th of May as they were following the British time at the moment of surrender.
To the French, it was a day of the restoration of glory to their home nation, and they celebrate it with military parades around the Arc de Triomphe each year. Photos of the celebration for the year 2007 are shown below.
The Germans, however, viewed this date as a day of defeat, until, in 1985, when the West German President declared it as a day of independence from Nazi rule.
As a visitor to this country (coming to Paris to work doesn't make me feel like a "worker" to the country) and someone born 2 generations after the war, this date may seem to be just another holiday. However, that's not what I feel.
History contains lots of lessons for us to learn. Not in the sense of all those words written in textbooks, but events in the past, where actions lead to consequences. World War II wasn't fought simply for the sake of showing off military superiority or for greed of domination - it was also a war of racism.
Hitler believed that his people (he was Austrian, but seemed to portray himself as a German more than anything else) were of a superior race, and hence the superior-should-be-ruling-the-world theory, which he spread to the rest of the nation.
In the midst of the war, he had numerous opportunities to exterminate the Jews, the race he blamed the most for the cause of poverty and whatnot. The Holocaust should have been one of the most painful lessons ever learnt, a lesson that says racism only bring about sufferings. Yet racism is still abound in a country that is celebrating its liberation from oppression 62 years down the road.
Maybe the 8th of May is just another reason for a holiday, meant for locals to relax and for tourists to enjoy a mlitary parade.
posted by Tengkia | 2:45 am
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