But that was five days ago. Now I am standing in the La Cambe Cemetery, surrounded by the graves of
Nazi soldiers, the ashes of hate, lying cold and dead under my feet. Eight months ago I was in Israel,
visiting Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial, watching a group of young Israeli conscripts on their
mandatory tour. A young female soldier was standing in front of a huge photograph of a Nazi soldier
executing a mother and her child. I saw her put her hand on her Uzi machine gun -how white her
knuckles became. Would she go out and be prepared for the threat of evil or would she be infected by it?


What about me? I have hated, hated deeply -the school bullies that were so much a part of my childhood,
the right wing politicians whose actions, I as a Union activist, passionately believed were unjust, even
evil.
Looking at that red rose on the black cross, my gut reaction said hate. Hate those I thought were "them"
and not "us." But in that moment I recognized that the only difference between "me" and "them" was that
their hate had already consumed them.

The closing words of the poet Wilfred Owen's wrenching description of a soldier drowning in a sea of
poison gas came to mind. He sarcastically quoted the Greek poet Horace, extolling the glories of war,
"Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori" (It is sweet and proper to die for one's country.) War, in the
defence of freedom may be necessary at times but there is nothing sweet or glorious about it. And worse,
without reconciliation we are doomed to reproduce the very evil we fought.

But that was five days ago. Now I am standing in the La Cambe Cemetery, surrounded by the graves of
Nazi soldiers, the ashes of hate, lying cold and dead under my feet. Eight months ago I was in Israel,
visiting Yad Vashem, the Holocaust memorial, watching a group of young Israeli conscripts on their
mandatory tour. A young female soldier was standing in front of a huge photograph of a Nazi soldier
executing a mother and her child. I saw her put her hand on her Uzi machine gun -how white her
knuckles became. Would she go out and be prepared for the threat of evil or would she be infected by it?


What about me? I have hated, hated deeply -the school bullies that were so much a part of my childhood,
the right wing politicians whose actions, I as a Union activist, passionately believed were unjust, even
evil.
Looking at that red rose on the black cross, my gut reaction said hate. Hate those I thought were "them"
and not "us." But in that moment I recognized that the only difference between "me" and "them" was that
their hate had already consumed them.

The closing words of the poet Wilfred Owen's wrenching description of a soldier drowning in a sea of
poison gas came to mind. He sarcastically quoted the Greek poet Horace, extolling the glories of war,
"Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori" (It is sweet and proper to die for one's country.) War, in the
defence of freedom may be necessary at times but there is nothing sweet or glorious about it. And worse,
without reconciliation we are doomed to reproduce the very evil we fought.