Holocaust Remembrance Day - Memories from my book - For Love of Country Military Policewoman www.silvaredigonda.ca

During one break I went to visit a concentration camp in France. The countryside was beautiful and wooden buildings neatly marked the rows of the hills. Everything was so manicured. I went into the buildings, saw the ovens, saw the showers where the people were killed and the contrast of the beauty of nature and the cruelty of humanity was too much to bear. In one of the buildings, after looking at the shrunken heads and souvenirs from the torture of Jews, tears flowed down my cheeks. I did not cry, but the tears kept coming, and I leaned against the wall horrified at what I was seeing. I would visit one more concentration camp in Germany, Dachau. I remember looking at a black and white photograph of a young beautiful man, a Jew, hanging dead by a rope. They had drained his body of oxygen. I stared at that beautiful face that death could not tarnish, and felt sadness for this man. He would have been so easy to love. I explored the grounds. I saw where people were tortured, where they slept, and the black and white pictures depicted their emaciated bodies. There was hopelessness on their faces. I stopped at a wall which still had blood stains from the people who had been shot against it. Another building had a shrine in honour of two women British Officers who had died bravely in the concentration camp. Why had I never heard about the women who served and died as soldiers? I did not cry or tear up this time. I had hardened, I suppose, during the time of my tour. One thing I was sure of: although I knew that I could kill, I would never, under any circumstances, torture. I was in the military because I believed in peace, because I believed that people and countries need to be protected by those who could do this. Anyone who had anything to do with this should pay the price with their own lives or spend the rest of their days in jail no matter how long it would take to track them. Excerpt From: Silva Redigonda. “For love of country : military policewoman. www.silvaredigonda.ca