On September 1, 1939, 1.5 million German soldiers and more than 2,500 tanks invaded Poland, while more than 2,000 German airplanes began bombing Polish cities, air bases, fortifications, bridges, and railroad lines. Two days later, Great Britain and France, which a year earlier had acquiesced to the German takeover of Czechoslovakia, declared war on Germany.
To mark this anniversary, which is considered the “start” of World War II, today’s #stampoftheday is an image of several of the “Overrun Countries” series of stamps. Mostly issued in 1943, the stamps honor the 13 countries occupied by the Axis Powers: Poland, Czechoslovakia, Norway, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Greece, Yugoslavia, Albania, Austria, Denmark, and Korea. On the left of each stamp is a phoenix, the great bird of fire from Greek mythology, representing eternal rebirth. On the right is a female, breaking the bonds of oppression.
I can’t really wrap my mind around the death and destruction that the war entailed and how it affected the lives of so many people – including my father who fought in Europe from late 1944 until the end of the war and my mother, who worried daily about the man she married only a few weeks before he was shipped overseas and who, like many American Jews, could only watch in horror as her family’s relatives in Europe were killed in the Holocaust.
However, three things do strike me as I ponder the war’s horrific carnage from a deck overlooking a quiet and peaceful pond in Maine. The first is the importance of taking a stand. As historian Tim Bouverie has noted, the run-up to the invasion of Poland, particularly the English and French governments’ failure to oppose Hitler’s takeover of Czechoslovakia, shows “what bad people are able to do when they think that the good people aren’t prepared to fight.”
The second is knowing when to take a stand, even if – or perhaps especially if – the immediate issue might not involve you directly. For some reason, I’m particularly struck by the statement Franklin Roosevelt issued on Sunday, September 3, the day that Britain and France declared wear on Germany. The United States, he said, “will remain a neutral nation, but I cannot ask that every American remain neutral in thought as well. Even a neutral has a right to take account of facts. Even a neutral cannot be asked to close his mind or his conscience.”
Third, as I’ve been mulling this, I found myself thinking about powerful words from Ann Frank’s diary which was written while hiding with her family in an attic in the Netherlands, one of those “Overrun Countries” honored in the stamps. Somewhat amazingly, she wrote: “It’s difficult in times like these: ideals, dreams and cherished hopes rise within us, only to be crushed by grim reality. It’s a wonder I haven’t abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart.”
Be well, stay safe, cling to your ideals, fight for justice, and work for peace.