Free Republic

The funeral of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, at Windsor Castle on April 17, 2021, an emotional if muted affair, arouses mixed emotions. It was a sad personal family farewell but also an event of public significance, political and military, and a spectacular display of pageantry. The setting itself was symbolic of British history: Windsor Castle, where ten kings have been laid to rest. The royal procession proved a collaboration of the various branches of the armed forces, military bands, royal marine buglers, and an honor guard from all the armed forces. Symbolically, the naval cap and sword of Philip,...

“See you tomorrow, promise to be a good boy,” were the last words addressed in 1942 to a six-year-old by his mother when she dropped him off at his kindergarten in Amsterdam. She was arrested a few hours later by the SS, deported together with her husband, sent by train to concentration camps, and murdered in Auschwitz. She was one of the 107,000 Jews who were victims of the Holocaust in the Netherlands in which the head of the occupying regime, Austrian Nazi Arthur Seyss-Inquart, instituted a reign of terror. Civilians were subjected to forced labor in Germany as well...