Free Republic

Distraught Jewish veteran Mervyn Kersh was one of nine D-Day veterans to march past the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday - but he fears another war could be on the horizon and the sacrifices of the Greatest Generation could be in vain. The father-of-three, 98, served in the Second World War as a private with the Royal Army Ordnance Corps, fighting through Belgium, Holland and Germany. He was also sent to help survivors of Adolf Hitler's death camp: Bergen-Belsen, where 70,000 or more people died including many Jews. Speaking yesterday, as he remembered his comrades, Mervyn said tearfully: 'It was a...

Two bugle calls, framing a symbolic night watch at a cenotaph… it’s not a bad way to spend a couple of minutes every year Ritual is an old human activity and some of the best ones operate at a more or less unconscious level combining symbolism with myth and belief. Our basic Remembrance Day rituals on November 11th seem right and fitting, and they evolved that way in the immediate aftermath of the First World War. Our Remembrance Day observation combines elements of classical Greece and Rome, a Christian hope of resurrection, and practices that probably go back to pre-historic...