Studying War

Do you believe that the land carries memories the way our skin remembers experience with its various scars? Certainly if you see aerial photos of the parts of France devastated by trench warfare, you see a haunted landscape carved, shaped, and devastated by war. Have you been to Vimy? Is it on your "bucket list"? The people I have talked to say they have been changed forever by witnessing the battlefield. You can hear it in their voice when they describe their visit: tones of reverence, gravitas, and a gentle sadness. There's wonder there too, as if to say, "How could this be true?" The land also remembers because Canadians who lived during the war return to Vimy Ridge to pay their respects or even now, Canadian families return to bury their dead. The First and Second World Wars were fought a long way from Vancouver, but the events that happened here also shaped the land and left indelible traces on our collective identity.

As I open the research books, the gospel tune "I ain't gonna study war no more" plays in my mind's ear. Ironically, I am embarking on a month long journey of war studies. To be specific, I'm looking at the First and Second World Wars in Vancouver as part of a Vancouver 125 project at the Firehall Arts Centre. Donna Spencer is directing a production of Vern Thiessen's play Vimy, and I am curating a visual art show that will hang in the lobby of the theater for the duration of the show. We want to draw people in to embark on their own internal study of Canada's war history, to ask all those big soul-searching questions that this study demands of us.

I find that after facing photos and text that describe the tragedies of war, once I close the books and head out the door onto the streets of Vancouver I am more acutely aware of the meaning of peace. I revel in the woman who revels in the pleasure of the sun beaming on her bare arms. I covet the cool hours I water our garden and clip sweet peas under the rising moon. I savor the privilege of picking a ripe tomato from the vine. I note that I'm lucky a jet passing over my house does not make me cringe in fear. For all these things, I am grateful. We study war in order to deepen our appreciation and understanding of peace. We read about war so that we can renew our commitment to resolve and end conflict. All of us have the responsibility to take the memories and stories into our bodies, to become memory keepers.

On January 11, 2010 we lost one of our most courageous and gifted memory keepers. Chava Rosenfarb was a Canadian author who survived the camps at Auschwitz and Bergen Belsen. I heard her story on The Late Show with Gordon Pincent on CBC Radio 1. (I recommend listening to the podcast here.) While many people have struggled to forget the horrors of war, Chava Rosenfarb believed in facing her past and telling her story. By writing a fictional account of her experiences she used her gifts to help us all to become memory keepers.

"But please remember that the future grows out of the past and the past too must be remembered, if only for the lessons it has to teach us, namely, what to celebrate and what to fear."

--Chava Rosenfarb