V-E Day Celebrations

My, what a difference 50 years can make. Like many Americans, I spent May 6-7 watching television specials and reading news articles commemorating the 50th anniversary of V-E Day and the fall of Germany. I give my special thanks to our veterans and Allies who fought and conquered the forces of evil.

I do have a few minor observations I would like to share as I type this on my American-made PC, and go to work in my English-made car, that is parked next to my wife’s German car. I also failed to mention that I watched all those televised specials on our Japanese-made TVs. My, isn’t it amazing at the progress warring countries have made in this short span of just 50 years? It is equally amazing to me just how little progress we as Americans have made in the war on prejudice, ignorance and racism.

These V-E Day celebrations demonstrate just how much change the world has seen in just half a century. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we as a people could make equal progress in how we integrate our society as we have learned to integrate products made by our past enemies into our daily lives?

GARY R. COOK

Los Angeles

* Your colorful “Victory in Europe” spread (May 9) was appreciated but I was immensely disappointed to see no mention of the victories of and sacrifices by Canadians. We were there, after all, from 1939 to 1945, and made major contributions to the outcome of the war.

JOYCE KENNEDY

Ventura

* On May 8, 50 years ago, I was reborn. It was 2 p.m. and the camp was quiet. No lineup, no roll call, no shouting from SS women who guarded us, no screams from tortured girls. Fearfully we walked to the iron gates. All of a sudden, men from the neighboring concentration camps (looking like ghosts) called, “Open the gate! You are free. The war is over, the SS left.” One thousand women turned to stone. Is that true, we asked one another?

It is impossible to describe what I felt. I started running and running, and then it dawned on me, where am I running? No home, no country, no relatives. I stopped and my heart was breaking. I looked around, the trees were in bloom, the sun was shining and I did not know where to go. Five years of my teen-age years were robbed from me and still I had nowhere to go. And then I asked myself: Did you survive? Millions of Jews and millions of others perished. I triumphed over Hitler, I thought.

As I watched the brave veterans celebrate 50 years later, I cried again for the ones that did not make it. But I also ask again why does the U.S. permit Hitler’s spirit to live again? Does “never again” lose its meaning? Was the suffering in vain? I worry. The neo-Nazis show their hate again. I remember it well!

RUZIA FUTTER

Los Angeles

* Impressions of V-E Day: My maternal grandmother is visiting us in the countryside, where we are spending the war years. She is tired after her train trip early in the morning. I am sitting down next to her on the bench in the hall and we are talking. She knew that the end of the war was near and she wanted to be with us.

All of a sudden, mother comes walking down the stairs. Mother is flashing the V-for-victory sign and says. “The war is over!”

Mother sits down next to us and starts crying. Soon enough the three of us are sobbing uncontrollably. At this time we had no news from Dad for six months. The last card was dated in Thresienstadt on Sept. 30, 1944.

Mother is the first one to come to and says: “I am getting the flag.” She pulls out the Czechoslovak flag from its hiding place. And she and I go outside to the old high flagpole and manage to run up the flag, although the pulleys and wires are rusty.

Mother disappears back into the house, obviously to listen to her trusty radio for news and directions for the population. I linger outside, only to spot a young German soldier, with his weapon slung over his shoulder, walking dejectedly along our fence. “Hey, you, surely you know, the war is over,” I say in German to him. He says one word: “Yes!” And keeps on walking . . . while in the distance we already hear the rumble of Soviet armor, crushing our roads for days on end, the woods around us giving off a strange echo, as if knowing that having gotten rid off one yoke, we are being hooked into another.

And from that day on, I was scanning anxiously all the people coming from all the trains, looking for Father . . . for weeks and for all that long summer of ’45. Alas, he never returned.

ISHKA LICHTER

Santa Monica

* On May 8 the President placed a wreath at the tomb of the unknown soldier at Arlington Cemetery. Soon he will doubtless fly to Canada to place another wreath at the tomb of the unknown draft dodger.

CHARLES JOYCE

Lake Forest