Remembrance Day 2023: A personal and impressive presentation

Not nervous

Dunya is confidently waiting for her turn. She is lucky. After the word of welcome, she immediately gets the microphone. It is the first time that we are at a memorial in our new neighborhood and Dunya immediately plays a major role. She is the first speaker. Years ago, she read a page from Anne Frank's Diary in our old neighborhood. She does that again now, but with a personal introduction. She says she is trying to imagine what her life would be like if she had lived in her home country of Afghanistan. No school, no sports, no going to town with friends and not even going outside alone. It is a life that is in great contrast to her life here, that is hard to imagine. It's an impressive story. She doesn't care that TV and Twitter talk about “our Remembrance Day”, where we are not allowed to commemorate wars in other countries. If you only remember your “own war”, you lose sight of the message. War is war.

Say goodbye and start over

It takes some getting used to. For years, we were involved in commemorating our old neighborhood. We went through a lot there. A member of our committee died suddenly a few years ago, just before we started preparing for the annual commemoration. Sometimes riots arose because people who connected did not always have the same expectations. From time to time, criticism came from outside. On the Soviet flag, for example. We talked about it often and for a long time in the committee, but thought we should raise the flags of all the Allies, including the Soviet Union, even though it no longer exists. Last year, part of the committee decided not to raise the flag because of the unrest surrounding Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Nevertheless, every year, there was a strong memorial. Last year we were there. We had ended our lives in Amsterdam West and wanted to focus on North. That felt good, until, during the memorial on the Kamperfoelieweg, I suddenly noticed that I miss the familiar memorial. That makes me smile again. A year after saying goodbye, it suddenly comes in. And yes, that's part of it. Saying goodbye and starting over is always associated with a little bit of pain. But we're not going back.