Commentary

Commentary

By Benita Gowen

Special to the Rappahannock News

I am a survivor of World War II. The terror I experienced and the atrocities I witnessed live with me even today. I never thought I would publicly share my story.

But now I need to tell you why I am a pacifist and why I hope our country will not be the cause of serious, warrelated suffering that will change forever the lives not only of millions of Iraqis but of our own soldiers and their families.

When we came to live in Rappahannock County a few years ago I looked forward to participating in community activities. A few weeks ago I was subpoenaed to serve on jury duty. But the prospect of war has brought on such fears and anxieties from those troubling days that the thought of confinement for long periods of time in a crowded space seems unbearable.

I turned for help to my doctor who wrote to the court that I was under “care for the treatment of severe posttraumatic stress disorder with severe and disabling panic attacks stemming from traumatic wartime experiences.”

She advised, “Serving on jury duty would likely create several weeks of exacerbated symptoms and is medi- j cally contraindicated.”

Let me tell you what £ happened to me. I was born ' in Riga, Latvia, and my country was invaded when I was four, the result of a “great nation’s” deal between Germany and Russia to award the Baltics to Russia in exchange for Russian noninterference elsewhere. The Germans overran Poland and the Russians took over the Baltics.

Two years later in 1941, when the deal was off, the Germans brought war back to Latvia. In the summer of 1944, while under German occupation we were at the beach near Riga with our extended and close-knit family.

One day my father arrived from Riga, very agitated, with news that the Russian front was fast advancing. For my parents and relatives, scarred by brutal memories of the Soviet occupation, Stalin was the monster we feared the most.

We knew we had to try to escape immediately. We