Today is a special day...it's Holocaust Rememberance Day in a number of countries (unfortunatly not observed in the US).

This is the day set aside to remember all the victoms of the Nazi atrocities during WW2. It's a day of special meaning to me, as my own father was almost a fatality of those atrocities...as it is he was a victom of experiences that no human being should ever have to undergo. It's important to remember that ordinary human beings are capable of such bestial behaviour if we are ever going to reach the point that it will never happen again.

Dad was interviewed by Rev. James Dobson in two segments of his Focus on the Family radio program last week. I learned quite a few things about my father I had never known prior to listening to this broadcast. Use the link and go to the archives for April 24 and 25 to hear it for yourself.

I hope that after you hear it, you will try to delve more deeply into that period of time and learn more about what happened, and even more importantly, WHY it happened. As my Dad noted, most of the people involved weren't monsters; they were ordinary people in extraordinay times and under pressures that many of us of the baby boom generation and beyond can't even conceive of in our nightmares.

Oh, and it's also my birthday; and getting to gain some insights into my father through this broadcast was one of the best presents I've ever gotten.

52 years young. Battered and bruised, but still ready to fight the fight.

Posted by: Delftsman3 at 02:45 PM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
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HERE is just ONE reason I'm proud of my dad.

He never talked about his childhood with us when we were growing up, except in the most general terms; it's only in the last two years that we have started to learn just some of the horrors he endured as a boy.

His main message is that we can never allow such horrors to occur again, and that God (HOWEVER you should choose to believe in him/her) is the only thing that can help you endure such experiences with (at least a semblance) of sanity afterwards. My Dad has never been religious, but he's always been a staunch believer in Christ and God.

There were many things I could never understand about my Dad when I was growing up, but now that I have begun to learn about his past, I can begin to understand him a great deal better. I'm glad he has broken his silence about the past, so I can, now that he's in the last years of his life, at least start to know the person he really is and why he is as he is before it's too late. Thats a gift that many children never have in their relationships with their parents, and I'm truly grateful for that.

Posted by: Delftsman3 at 09:20 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Kim du Toit for Press Secretary!

Posted by: Delftsman3 at 05:11 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Rumors to the contrary, I haven't died, or ran away to be with an exotic circus dwarf.

Seems that there were some problems with my internet connection; as in, I didn't HAVE a connection due to some unfortunate circumstances....funny how IP's are so slow to tender services and so damned fast to cut you loose if you miss paying a phone bill you didn't even know you had....

Enough grousing about troubles, Let me do some cruising and see what I can come up with for you; assuming any of you have bothered to keep me on your reading lists.

Be back in a bit to share anything that might have caught my eye, so please reinstate me to your lists, because I'm aiming to get back in your good graces.

Posted by: Delftsman3 at 03:25 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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