Windsor Peace Coalition to Lay Wreath at Cenotaph on Occasion of Remembrance Day 2019The youth and the
generation that lived through
World War II This year marks the 80th anniversary of the invasion of Poland by the Nazi army, leading to the outbreak of World War II. In that war the peoples of the world, including many Canadians, united as one to defeat fascism. Within militaries of allied countries and the underground resistance in occupied countries, millions sacrificed their lives to defeat the Nazi war machine and liberate those who had come under its yoke. On the occasion of Remembrance Day 2019 the Windsor Peace Coalition will once again lay a wreath at the Cenotaph in Windsor to remember all the lives lost -- the tens of millions of civilian lives, as well as the sacrifice of all those who have fought and died in hopes that aggression and occupation by great military powers would be relegated to the dustbin of history. Today this remains the most pressing matter of our time. This year our wreath, which reads "Never Again," will be carried by Anne Beer, a holocaust survivor, and Zoya Villamizar, a Grade 3 student at Giles Campus Elementary School. Anne is a long-time anti-war activist in Windsor and member of Women in Black, a peace group that holds a silent vigil against war and violence every week across from the entrance to the Ambassador Bridge. She survived the Nazi occupation of Hungary but her parents did not, perishing inside a Nazi extermination camp. Zoya is a regular participant in the weekly anti-war pickets of the Windsor Peace Coalition. Her maternal great-grandfather was a Canadian of Ukrainian descent who volunteered as an ambulance driver in the Canadian armed forces and was part of the invasion force that liberated France from Nazi occupation in 1944. Her paternal great-grandfather joined the Canadian Army during World War II to show that Canadians of German descent did not support the Nazis. Her maternal great-grandmother was forced to flee Czechoslovakia as a teenager following the Nazi occupation of her homeland. For more information contact the Windsor Peace Coalition at: windsorpeace@hotmail.com
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