Monday, May 08, 2006

Holidays

Last week, we had May Day and that was two days off which maybe got stretched to a little more than that just to accommodate the festivities. This week, it's victory in the Great Patriotic War and we have another two days off for that, which may get stretched a little bit more again.

The one this week is a big one, though. It was a cause celebre in the Soviet Union. If there was nothing else to recommend it, at least they could always point, with a lot of reason, to the victory over the fascists as a reason. So we celebrate.

It is an interesting thing to be in an audience, have the speaker congratulate all the veterans of the war as he has them stand up and see only women standing. It was a bit jarring to me to see it. But that is the fact here. The home front was the front and everyone was in it.

We know a woman who was in her twenties during the war and saw the Nazis roll into her little village. The stories she tells are riveting. When they left, a lot left with them, the portion that is, that wasn't destroyed. And over 90% of the men in that village died during the war so there were a lot of widows. Those widows are the veterans left there.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I had been wondering what holiday was coming up. Heard several times about a holiday, but couldn't figure which one. Good to know.