I have not seen the movie, "Defiance." I don't know that I dare; it may strike too close to home for me.
My mother was in the Belgian Resistance during World War II.
Her first husband, Pierre, was the leader of a small Belgian Resistance group. He was betrayed by another member, under torture, and thrown into Breendonk torture camp, south of Brussels.
Mom was twice imprisoned by the Gestapo, in St. Gilles Prison in Brussels.
She survived, Pierre did not.
Two weeks before D-Day, Pierre was shipped to Frankfurt and executed.
My mother was a 26-year-old widow when she met my father, an American G.I. They corresponded for two years after the war's end. She came to America in 1947 and loved this country, though she never became a citizen because she got a small pension from Belgium for her sacrifices during the war.
Her resistance group provided information to British Intelligence, as well as smuggled downed allied fliers to safety.
She earned that pension. She would have lost it if she'd taken American citizenship.
Mom died in 1983 after fighting cancer for nine years.
Dad died in 1998 from a sudden heart attack. He outlived Mom by 15 years -- and missed her every day.
And every day, I sit at my computer and hear of "heroes" of basketball, rock and roll, NASCAR, country western and so on. Heroes? What have they sacrificed?
A hero sacrifices something of great value: life, limb, mind, home, family, security, etc. for the good of his fellow man -- without hesitation and without asking for reward.
Just what a sports or rock and roll hero sacrifices is beyond my understanding. I've known 18-year-old USAF Airmen who sacrificed more than these "heroes."
I have real heroes to honor. I don't need an expensive poster, T-shirt or commemorative plate to remember them by.
Pierre is buried in an old cemetery in downtown Brussels, in a courtyard of true Heroes of the Belgian Resistance. There are about 20 graves there; and every year fewer and fewer flowers are left upon them.
Mom is buried in Spokane, Washington with Dad beside her. Neither of their gravestones mention military service, or service to America. They would have wanted it that way; real heroes have humility.
As for the movie ...
History will never know the full story of those courageous civilians who cried, "If not me, who?" and rose against evil men and women that enslaved, murdered and degraded them.
It is a lesson -- and obligation -- lost on the current generation of youth around the world.
I fear it is a lesson that will be brutally relearned soon, at a cost too horrendous to ponder.
The current generation seems to have no sense of sacrifice or obligation, and decries all violence as evil and poisonous to peace.
As Pierre, my mother and father have taught me by their actions, not all violence is evil.
In fact, at times, it's the only thing that can restore peace and human dignity.
I have not seen the movie, "Defiance" but I hope it stresses that, sometimes, violence is not only necessary, it's demanded of those who would make the world a better place.
Si vis pacem, parabellum
(Latin for, "If you would have peace, prepare for war.")
