History Keeps Repeating
By
Gerry Niskern
I can remember one day when I was six sitting in my mom’s kitchen and watching her making cottage cheese. She was listening to the radio and crying. The year was l939 and Hitler was starting his devastating march across Europe. I remember being distressed and asking her why she was crying. “It’s because of what’s happening in Europe, honey; those poor people.”
That was my first knowledge of war. Of course, as time went on, kids in the United states were personally involved in the war in many different ways. We learned about war every day at school and home. Many lost fathers, brothers, as our country entered the conflict but we felt safe because we were here, in America. When we went to the movies we saw the News Reels before the show and I felt sadness watching the little children in England kissing their tearful parents goodbye as they boarded buses and trains to leave the larger cities most likely to be bombed. Many of those kids went to Ireland, but they also were welcomed in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and even South Africa.

Over the last two weeks we’ve all watched courageous women with their beautiful children leaving the large cities in Ukraine to find safety in other welcoming countries. The heartbreaking scenes we’ve seen on television reminded me of those English kids all those many years ago.
World War Two, started when I was six, ended when I was 13. Everyone thought there would never be another. But there always was; the Korean war, Vietnam, Iraq. And always the same images of women and children fleeing the country. But nothing on the scale of WW11 that is threatening today. We have to trust our leaders to walk a fine line in helping the Ukrainian government without triggering a larger, unthinkable conflict. Because, where would we send the children than?