The US was complicit in aiding the construction of Nazi Germany, with companies like General Motors, Exxon, Du Pont and Standard Oil all pouring millions into building and supplying the Nazi war machine.

The US itself did not 'join in' the war but stood by and watched the Nazis first insinuate and then blitzkreig their way across Europe, until just one country was left standing:

'...Where are the films showing the desperate people in Britain, crying out day after day after day: 'where are our friends, the Americans? Where are they? Why won't they help us? Are we stand all alone in defending freedom? ...as they clung on by their fingertips, alone against the night, the might of the Nazi war machine? '

After Dunkirk, there was only one armed division left in Britain - and that was Canadian. Rumours circulated at the time that cannibalism occurred in Coventry after it was carpet bombed...the horrors of the firestorms there...'

That was from a discussion some time back regarding when we should let the memory of war fade to grey.

My mother was 'bombed'. As I write this it's hard to imagine today that within line of sight of this garden was a heap of rubble stretching as far as the eye could see. On September 7th 1940, Hitler changed tactics and launched the Blitz. For fifty seven consecutive days and nights, London was 'ringed and stabbed with fire'. In one night alone three thousand people perished. A school was hit killing four hundred and fifty people sheltering inside.

The Underground became a realm of folklore, of illicit liasons, gambling dens, of people singing and whistling in the dark, too scared to imagine what ruin and destruction waited to assault their senses as they emerged blinking into the poisoned day. And they endured, each and every dark day after day after day.

Poignant, wistful but above all hopeful songs took root and flourished in the Underground web, and became symbols of defiance and resilience:

'We'll meet again,
Don't know where,
Don't know when,
But I know
We'll meet again
Some sunny day.

Keep smilin' thro
Just like you
Always do
Till the blue skies
Drive the dark clouds
Far away.

So will you please say hello
To the folks that I know;
Tell them I won't be long.
They'll be happy to know
That as you saw me go
I was singing this song.

We'll meet again,
Don't know where,
Don't know when,
But I know we'll meet again
Some sunny day.'

Although the US sold arms and supplies to Britain, the beleaugered British had to wait for two more years before the US finally decided to stand up to the Nazis.

The atrocities of the Nazi concentration camps is a collective, human resposibility. Neither the British nor most other Europeans feel any degree of guilt about the camps, just speechless horror. The exception is the German people who are still shamed by the history.

This week is the 60th anniversary of D-Day. For the first time, the Germans will be present to celebrate also, for they now feel that D-Day marked the start of their liberation from the Nazis too.

The Nazis felt that they were morally superior, had the right to impose their culture upon others, could violate international law with impunity and have disregard for basic human rights, some of whom, like the Jews, or Gays or Gypsies they thought were less than human and were subsequently degraded, abused and tortured and imprisoned in camps.

It seems that we never do take full heed of history.

yechydda,