Our June meeting DVD focused on the revolutions that brought Lenin & the Bolsheviks to power in Russia. We saw the hopes and struggles to raise the desperately poor to a higher standard of living, at first applauded by many in the west. The Soviet Union set out to be a world leader that would see revolutions in many other countries; but lost many of its supporters who were horrified by the mass killings. International support crumbled, to be replaced by fear of communism.
Our second program had been produced for an Anzac Day screening. It featured the battlefield cemeteries and included an acknowledgement that Aboriginals were also among the Australian war dead and wounded, but have only recently been acknowledged for their service. Those Aboriginal soldiers who survived were not eligible for Soldier settlement schemes and other support, nor were not allowed to join the RSL, although some branches allowed them to join ex comrades for Anzac Day.
The program asked us to understand the complexities of the war so we do not fall prey to “fairy stories”. The finale was a reading of war poet Siegfried Sassoon’s Aftermath written in 1919. The harrowing poem asks: “Have you forgotten yet?” Sassoon writes of the horrors of the Western Front, the rats & the dead, the terribly wounded and the young boys, now shattered men. “ Look down & swear by the slam of the war, you will never forget.”
The poem concludes : “Do you ever ask if it's all going to happen again?” Of course we know that is exactly what happened just 20 years later.
Terry Case
Our second program had been produced for an Anzac Day screening. It featured the battlefield cemeteries and included an acknowledgement that Aboriginals were also among the Australian war dead and wounded, but have only recently been acknowledged for their service. Those Aboriginal soldiers who survived were not eligible for Soldier settlement schemes and other support, nor were not allowed to join the RSL, although some branches allowed them to join ex comrades for Anzac Day.
The program asked us to understand the complexities of the war so we do not fall prey to “fairy stories”. The finale was a reading of war poet Siegfried Sassoon’s Aftermath written in 1919. The harrowing poem asks: “Have you forgotten yet?” Sassoon writes of the horrors of the Western Front, the rats & the dead, the terribly wounded and the young boys, now shattered men. “ Look down & swear by the slam of the war, you will never forget.”
The poem concludes : “Do you ever ask if it's all going to happen again?” Of course we know that is exactly what happened just 20 years later.
Terry Case
