Yes, it was poignant that the two anniversaries fell on Sunday, the one containing the seeds of what led indirectly to the other (A pause to recall an age of extremes, 10 November). But a third anniversary seems to have been forgotten, though the mass attacks on people and property because of race seems of the three the most likely to recur. It was of course Kristallnacht, when part of a nation were told that all their problems were caused by a minority group and stood by or joined in while Jewish homes, schools and hospitals were destroyed, over 1,000 synagogues were burned, 30,000 people put into concentration camps and many massacred that night alone. I saw no mention of it in the Guardian. Not much here in Germany either.
Brian Smith
Berlin, Germany
• Jonathan Freedland recalls 9 November 1989, and that Berlin’s “wall held no more”. There is another, newer wall, that was conceived in 1991 and separates Palestinian Arabs from Israeli Jews in the territory that Israel has forcibly seized from the Arabs. That wall is not coming down. It is still being built, with American and European money, intruding into Palestinian Arab space and destroying the Arabs’ lives, future and freedom. Ed Miliband knows this, and it is to his credit that he has had the courage to affirm his views of the modern state of Israel, and its works, even at the cost of Zionist funders. I realise I was right to vote for him, and will continue to do so.
Tim Llewellyn
London
• In the midst of rejoicing at the coming down of the Berlin Wall, let us still remember – and hang our heads in shame – that Walls are still erected, still impenetrable, in the Middle East, North Africa, Mexico, Korea … and Northern Ireland.
Godfrey Holmes
Withernsea, East Riding of Yorkshire
• There are two pictures on the front of Monday’s Guardian. One shows a woman with bare hands poking a living flower into a crack in a wall which a generation ago literally divided a nation. The other shows an older woman with gloved hands laying a wreath of artificial flowers on a monument that is all meaning and no purpose. What does either picture mean? The byword is “lest we forget”, but the truth is, no one alive now can personally remember a single one of the millions of young men who were persuaded to kill each other a century ago. So what are we pretending to remember? And wouldn’t the money spent on this collective contrivance be better spent helping still-living soldiers crippled in more recent wars?
John Bird
London
• Great that the government has given some war widows their pensions for life (Military widows will be allowed to remarry with pensions intact, theguardian.com, 8 November), but what about those of us who remarried? It appears that my first husband’s life is still worth less than that of other personnel whose death is attributable to their service. Is the government seriously proposing that we all take advantage of the current regulations and divorce our current partners, get our war widow pensions reinstated, as we are legally entitled to do, and then remarry our former husbands?
If that is the case then my husband and I are perfectly prepared to do so and invite everyone to our second wedding on 2 April 2015, which should be our 10th wedding anniversary.
Come on, prime minister, make it real equality for all war widows, not just a headline-grabbing opportunity on the eve of Remembrance Sunday.
Angela Haworth
Belper, Derbyshire
• As we contemplate the sea of poppies around the Tower of London, one for each member of the British armed forces who was killed in the first world war, it is salutary to remember that as many, if not slightly more, Rwandans were killed in the genocide of 1994 – in 100 days.
Peter Greaves
London
• Simon Lovelace suggests “a serious, workable and poignant solution” to the quandary felt in some quarters regarding the removal of the poppy installation (Letters, 8 November). I have one too, and it might allow for politicians of all stripes to display their “deep and honest care for the people of Britain” as espoused by Ian Flintoff (Letters, 8 November). I suggest that before the poppies are removed, and in the presence of the three “main party” leaders, the RAF should fly over the installation and drop the recently shredded expenses claims of parliamentarians together with a shredded copy of the provisions of habeas corpus. I’ve not yet been to the Tower. I might do if this suggestion were adopted. Meanwhile, I will proudly cast my vote for Ukip next May, as I have done for the past 10 years, and continue to be a subscriber to the Guardian.
Roger Gough
Minchinhampton, Gloucestershire
• The subtitles for the BBC Remembrance Sunday broadcast referred to “the women’s exhilarate your force association”. Is that what my mother was doing when she was in the WAAF?
Jennifer Henley
London
• In all the memorials, poppies etc, has anyone noticed any references to German or French (let alone Russian and Austrian) casualties in the first world war, all greater than British, even when those include the empire? Has the BBC considered, for instance, broadcasting All Quiet on the Western Front? At times it has all seemed to reflect the rise of Ukip.
Susan Reynolds
London
• On Remembrance Sunday the politicians who step forward one by one to lay wreaths on behalf of political parties should follow the example of the numerous high commissioners and the service chiefs, and consider uniting to lay their wreaths in a group. We don’t really need to gaze on our political leaders as individuals as the nation unites to pay tribute to those who have fought, died or suffered injury while serving our country.
Jane Barder
London
• Three pages on Remembrance Sunday’s official commemorations of “those who have fallen in a century of conflicts”, yet not a hint of the irony – not to mention the hypocrisy – of that phrase when it began as the “war to end all wars”. Nor a word about the alternative “white poppy for peace” events, eg the Veterans for Peace march under the banner “Never again”, followed by the laying of a white poppy wreath; Michael Morpurgo’s Movement for the Abolition of War lecture at the Imperial War Museum, on what he learned about the first world war that made him write his book War Horse; local events in Oxford, Liverpool, Halifax, Bromley, to name a few.
Then we have General Sir Nick Houghton, chief of the defence staff, blustering about “fixing his bayonet” to retain the ability to send more young men and women to kill and risk being be killed (Spending cuts: Defence chief pledges to fight on, 10 November. Apropos of which, and his and Gove’s comments on Oh! What a Lovely War, I forget which general it was who said “we mustn’t be squeamish about casualties”, but it could probably have been any of them. It was not so much lions led by donkeys, as “leaders” who had a callous disregard for the lives of their men in the pursuit of gaining a few yards of mud.
Frank Jackson
Former co-chair, World Disarmament Campaign
• I write in response to Dan Snow’s article (Remembrance Sunday should not be dominated by religion, theguardian.com, 6 November). I disagree with his view totally.
In Kempston last year there wasn’t going to be a parade or service on Remembrance Sunday as the British Legion were struggling with people to coordinate it. It was the religious-based 1st Kempston Boys Brigade company that got the parade sorted and the Kempston churches who worked together a few weeks before to arrange a service. I didn’t see the local humanists or other non-religious groups doing a lot to recognise our war heroes. If it had been left to them, they may have been forgotten altogether.
Remembrance Sunday is key, so our young know the cost of war and the benefits of doing everything we can to achieve peace. Surely that’s the important message, not peddling pro- or anti-religious messages.
If you want a non-religious ceremony, then organise it like the religious groups do, then we can really spread the importance of peace to even more people in this land. But please don’t criticise those religious groups who are actually prepared to do something so we can all remember – provide an alternative if that’s how you feel. Thanks to those who made that sacrifice, you are blessed with that opportunity.
Philip Timms
Company captain, 1st Kempston company, The Boys’ Brigade
