(Article changed on May 3, 2013 at 08:12)
(Article changed on May 2, 2013 at 13:18)

DSC03645 by **emmar**
This is my traditional May article. I had been writing those before May 9 for years. Anyone can go to my articles' page and read all the previous ones. There will be a Victory Parade in Moscow, Russia on May 9 and they will celebrate the 68th anniversary of Victory over Germany on May 9, 1945. We don't celebrate it. Come to think of it, why? May 9th was an official day of the German capitulation, the act was signed by German field -marshal Keitel and by four main coalition commanders- Russian, British, American and French; lock, stock and barrel. None of the Western sides celebrates it though. Only Russians. Why?
I think I know why. Russians celebrate because not only they just won the war. They won it because they were at that period of time the best people on Earth. They celebrate the spirit of that time, the utmost rising of the national spiritual power, the same way as French celebrate the Bastille Day, Americans celebrate the Independence Day, British Celebrate the Trafalgar. It is not about winning; it is about being the best at the time.
That had been my primary message for a while, whether I wrote about Russia or about Lincoln. And in most cases the message fell on dead ears. People, my readers, apparently either had no interest in the issue or just did not want to acknowledge the fact. Really, let that guy have his opinion, who cares. And does it matter who was the best at the time? In all fairness, if we follow the logic of that guy, the only really best were the victims, the "hundreds of thousands burned alive' like they say in one Russian song; those people, whether Jewish, German, Russian, Polish, French or Japanese- they were all innocent victims and thus -- sacrosanct by default. That would be the right way to think.
Yes, that would be the right way to think. Jean Moulin is not worse than Alexander Matrosov. The Westerplatte heroes from Poland are not worse than the defenders of the Brest Citadel. The peasants of Khatyn village in Byelorussia, burned alive are not better than the people of Or Adour, France, burned alive in 1944. All are martyrs, nobody must be forgotten. And yes, the victims inspire. But they do not win over evil. They are the cause for the eternal fight but not an effect. They make the case for the people to become better.
Information though must not only be transferred but also absorbed. In 1938 Hitler's armies occupied Austria after first assassinating its Chancellor Dolphus and imprisoning the next Chancellor Shushnig. Hitler claimed Austria as his birthplace. Right after the occupation the Jews of Vienna were forced to come out to the streets, women and children too- and clean the Vienna streets using toothbrushes. The private German matter became an international shame. The reaction of the Western public opinion was:
- Let's direct the German assault to the East and then we here in the West will feel secure.
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