History of Memorial Day: Why We Fight

WHY WE FIGHT

The world is different than it was even a few years ago as we celebrate Memorial Day. We now are fighting a war, and we now remember why we fight. The History Channel re-runs the HBO series "Band of Brothers," the adaptation of the Stephen Ambrose book about a company of men from the landing at Normandy through the end of the World War II.

During WWII my father crossed paths a couple of times with the Company E mentioned in "Band of Brothers". Once at the Battle of the Bulge and later while liberating the death camp Dachau.

My father's story is told in part on HBO's website regarding the episode on the liberation of Dachau at: http://www.hbo.com/band/landing/why_we_fight.html.

His full story is told in pictures at http://www.billpetro.com/johnpetro

He rarely volunteered to me information about the War, but when I did ask, he would answer. He left me pictures taken during the liberation of Dachau. Ironically, during a recent visit to Dachau, when I told the workers at this modern memorial, they all asked me the same question: "Do you have pictures?" I still have these pictures of those who survived, who looked like skeletons. I also have pictures of the skeletons of those who did not survive, of the open boxcars with bodies piled high.

Dachau gate: "Work Makes Free"

My father had seen a lot of action during the war and later was in charge of three P.O.W. camps for German prisoners, but nothing prepared him for what he saw at Dachau. He said that he watched his commanders vomit when they saw the camps. Those who were liberated were like the dead, they could not believe that they were finally being freed.

When I stood before this plaque attached to the tunnel leading up to the gate shown above, even with the school children running around playing in the yard on field day, I wept as I considered the bravery of my father's group, Rainbow Division, one of three divisions to liberate the camp.

These gruesome images must never be forgotten. It must never be forgotten what barbarism that man is capable of committing toward fellow men. But some may say, "I don't want to think about it, surely no one believes that these atrocities were justified, that they'd ever be repeated." But only two decades ago, an organization asked to use University of California conference grounds property for a meeting. This request was later denied when it was learned that the organization requesting the facilities believed that the Holocaust was a hoax, that it did not really occur. There was also a corresponding outcry that this organizations' free speech rights were being violated.

A person who remembers the past can be grateful for the freedoms that were purchased at great cost by those who went before them. They can memorialize those who fought and died, they can honor those against whom horrors were committed. A person without this sense of history is a severed person, self-referential, cut off from the past.

On this Memorial Day, the words of George Santayana, Harvard philosopher and poet are most apt:

"Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it."

Bill Petro, son of John Petro
www.billpetro.com/johnpetro

History of The War: my conversation with Ken Burns

THE WAR, part 1

Tonight I talked with Ken Burns, who you know for his award winning documentaries including The Civil War, Baseball, and JAZZ. I had the privilege of sharing with him two questions, after he presented a preview of his new documentary coming out in Fall of 2007, about World War II called simply The War. This presentation took place at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs. We got to see 7 or 8 clips, or about an hour and a quarter of his 7-part, 14.5 hour series that he has been working on for some 6 years. He's previewing this documentary at military academies around the country.

I'll tell you more about it in my next article, but now I'll share the two questions.

1) I asked:

Mr. Burns, in terms of the power of pictures, the "Ken Burn Effect" is so renowned, that Apple computer includes it in their iPhoto desktop application. Can you share with us where this came from?

Ken Burns' answer:

I am the son of a photographer, and I started in photography long before I ever hoped to do film making. But photos should not be static, they should move and suggest action. So I used common techniques like inserts, pans, zooms, fades, and dissolves... in my first work on the Brooklyn Bridge in 1981, and then in The Civil War, which of course, only had still pictures.

Several years ago, Steve Jobs said "Come see what we're working on." He showed me a rudimentary application of these techniques in a program he was working on that he wanted to label the "Ken Burns Effect." He and three other geeks were talking in technological terms way above my head. I said "Steve, I don't do commercial endorsements." Eventually we worked out a deal where he donated some gear to a charity that my wife is involved in, and he got to use the term.

2) I continued:

My second question relating to the power of pictures is about a question that was asked of me when I was visiting the Dachau Concentration Camp memorial years ago, and I mentioned to those who worked there that my father had liberated Dachau some 48 years before. They asked me a question, and what is remarkable is that they all asked the same question. The question was "Do you have any pictures?" I shared with them the website I created as a tribute to my father that had the pictures my father had brought back and his story. Since then there have been over 30,000 visitors to the site. And I still get phone calls and email from men who tell me, "I went on leave in Paris with your father," or "I was with him when we liberated Dachau," or "I was with him after the war in Austria." Such is the power of pictures.

Ken Burns replied:

We deal with the holocaust at the end of the series, a particularly difficult section of the documentary.

Ms. Lynn Novick, his co-producer on many of his documentaries, added that when they started the research on the documentary they began at the National Archives with photos of the Holocaust. After having made so many films, it was easy to believe that they were somewhat inured to grueling scenes, but she noted that one of her interns -- whose responsibility it was to collect and record the images that would later be used for this documentary -- had to stop, as he could no longer take in all these images.

Such is the power of pictures.

To be continued...

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
www.billpetro.com