The Apple Club Newsletter, Winter 2005, Page 6

Last year at Christmas, I wrote about Christmas celebrations in Holland. This time I will write about war and peace (Tolstoy wrote a book with this title).
It is war when people disagree with each other so much that they begin to fight and even try to kill each other.
It is peace when people get on with each other and live and let live. In the bible, the first war took place between two brother called Cain and Able, sons of Adam and Eve. Cain killed Abel because he was jealous of him. You can read this in the first book of the bible, called Genesis. Since that time there has been war and peace throughout history. You know that from school. It just never stopped. From small wars with stones and fists to the atom bombs which were dropped in Japan, first on Hiroshima and then on Nagasaki.
Here in Ireland it was the same; from Brian Ború to the civil war. All wars are the same. They are about power and dominance, like you see between animals. Except that animals rarely kill one another.
The first World War was from 1914 to 1918. It was called the Great War. What was great about it? Only the scale. Millions of soldiers were killed in the trenches of Belgium. Killed by bombs, bullets, bayonets and gas. Plenty of Irish people from around here died or were wounded in that war. Many were 17 or 18 years old, and the youngest soldier killed in that war was from Waterford, only 14 years old.
When the first World War was over people wanted peace badly. Still, only twenty years later, the whole World was at war again. From Germany to England to America, Japan, Russia and France. Think if that happened now. Yes Germany started that war. And it was not a war as wars were before. It was a total war.
And the biggest evil was thought out by a man named Hitler. He really had an incredible power over people. Millions of people greeted him with Hail Hitler, as if he was God. Hitler not only made war, but told people that the German race was better than any other. They were perfect and others were inferior. Especially the Jews were inferior to him and his Nazi party.
If you read what happened to the Jews and to others you would not believe it. But some people filmed what happened at the time, and these films prove it, and that is important now that few survivors are still alive. A book I recommend is the diary of Anna Frank. She was a Dutch Jewish girl living in Amsterdam, and kept a diary of what happened to her. She died, and six million more, in the concentration camps.
We need to remember what happened, again and again. War is lunacy; is madness. War is not about bravery and medals.
I was in the Dutch army when I was young, and I began to see that it was for the Generals and power-mad people.
And now it is almost Christmas. I think Christmas is the best feast of the year. It is about a child born who wanted to bring peace to the World. Peace between different people.
Peace is not just the absence of war, I hope. I think it should mean respect and love between each other.
Christmas is such a wonderful feast because people try not to be greedy but generous. We give presents to each other and wish each other peace and happiness. And if we wish that to each other, it is bound to happen. It gives us courage to start a new year.
I wish you peace and happiness, and I hope to have it myself.

Competition:

War and Peace, By Willem Traas

Summer competition winners: