Memory of war

This message came about because my grandchildren were taken to see the movie
"Narnia: the lion...the wardrobe." Apparently in the first scene the Germans
are shown bombing London in WWII, and then you see the bombs falling from
the point of view of the children who are central to the story. My grand-
children were surprised and fascinated by the fact that we had lived through
similar experiences. When they visited for Hanukkah they asked me about it,
what was it like, and I reminisced about some of my memories (I was 3 in 1941).
I told them about hiding under a table during an air-raid when the sirens came
too late, about seeing a Church behind our apartments (block of flats) take a
direct hit and how it rose in the air and then collapsed in flames across the
road. I told them about running down to the shelter in the yard behind the
apartments and sitting in there for hours with lots of people. Then I told
them about the disaster that occurred at Bethnal Green Road underground
station, where people used to go and sleep overnight for safety because it was
deep. One day there was a sudden rumor that it was about to be bombed and
people panicked and there was a crowd trying to push their way in, and because
the stairs were so steep people fell on each other, and hundreds were crushed
to death. Luckily my family missed the accident because they arrived a little
late. These are the kinds of things that happen in war.
I came to live in Israel and I'm glad some of my family live here because I
wanted them to be safe, and not to be exposed to the kind of dangers that I
experienced in my early life. But, unfortunately things have not worked out
that way. We still have homicidal maniacs wanting to kill us because we are
Jews/Israelis and we still face the threat of bombing from the air because of
the maniacal views of the Sh'ite leaders of Iran. I suppose I could say, well
lets escape to Alaska or Hawaii, or somewhere where there are no anti-Semites,
and no danger from terrorism and mad bombers. But, I'm afraid that there are
no such places, and anyway we feel safer (and more dignified) defending
our own country than trying to be inconspicuous elsewhere.
It seems necessary for each generation of Jews to experience and remember
some terrible acts against them, but they must be sure to pass that knowledge
on so that we can measure how far we have come. Now we don't just cringe in
fear, we also have our own means of defense and won't depend on whether or not someone else's airforce decides to protect us or not.