A Time for Reflection

Remembrance

A Time for Reflection

Transcript

A Time For Reflection

Canadian delegation walking through the cemetery

Interviewer: Our Canadian Delegation have an opportunity to visit the British, French and German cemeteries bringing mixed emotions as they pass by the graves of the fallen, 100 years ago.

Veterans visiting the German cemetery

Youth delegate being interviewed

Yes so we are here at the German cemetery and I think they said it’s something around 11,000 crosses and then there are four people per cross so it kind of gives you a perspective of how many people were lost on both sides. So this is, it’s nothing you are going to get from an in-school ceremony or watching something online, you got to come here to see it.

Landscape of the German cemetery

I mean it feels like it goes on and on forever. I had to walk to the edge to make sure that it didn’t go on forever because it felt like it did.

Crowd of people walking through the German cemetery

Veteran Robert McCue being interviewd

It’s unbelievably bleak compared to the British and Commonwealth War Graves, just sombre and dark but it’s such a waste of life. And to think that they fought the war to end all wars and less than twenty years later they were at it again on the same ground and the same place and same country. It seems we are doomed to repeat the past but, you know, it’s dark and it really hits you when you see four soldiers buried per cross, you just get a sense of just how much life is wasted in war. It’s heart wrenching really.

Veteran James Morris being interviewed

Well I feel a little sad that so many people have died for little reason really. They told us there were almost 48,000 people buried here. Now whether they are allies or whether they were enemy it doesn’t seem to matter, it’s still a loss of life.

Veteran overlooking the French cemetery

Well my first impression was to realize the enormity of the sacrifices that these young men and probably women made

Toombstone with inscription of fallen soldier

in defending their country.

Veteran Bob Martin being interviewed

My father fought in Vimy Ridge so I’m a direct descendent and that’s why I am here, very glad to be here. He won the military medal and he never spoke about the battle but as I can see from visiting the trenches and the tunnels that it must have been a terrible, terrrible battle to be in.

Youth delegate being interviewed

Well for me they say Vimy Ridge was the first time that Canada, everyone fought together, it was kind of a a unifying point for our country and so as someone who studies history I see it as a big point of interest to come here and see it for myself. You read about it all the time and hear about it and to actually come here and see how large the monument actually is and to see all these crosses it really hits you like physically.

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Our Canadian Delegation had an opportunity to visit the British, French and German cemeteries bringing mixed emotions as they pass by the graves of the fallen100 years ago.

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