For many people, the one special date of the year is an occasion to reflect on other — more famous — anniversaries that fall on that day.
For me, this is the 6th of December. I used to think that this date wasn’t an extraordinary one, apart from being St Nicolas’ Day (which is important in Germany, as children put their stockings out over the night and find it in the morning filled with nuts, oranges and candy), and the birthday of Peter Handke and Ève Curie.
But I was wrong. There’s another, much more painful and, I fear, somewhat significant event that took place on this date. Here are the details on the CBC archive site. The perpetrator left a letter about his intentions, which is here — no one can say he wasn’t clear on what his acts signified.
One thing I find slightly disquieting is when the massacre at the Montreal Polytechnique University happened, I wasn’t a child any longer. I was a young adult, and should have been open to what happens in the world. Still, I only learnt about these events a few years ago.
For more links in French, see the French version of this article.
Related posts: Poor EU parliament, Mr Kerry plus Mr Somebody, 3 rencontres, Europe's left-wing republicans and right-wing liberals, Electoral scribblings (part 1), Violence , Enduring perpetual jeremiads
Technorati (tags): society
I was much older than you at the time and don’t remember the event either.
Happy birthday (better late than never!).
In school we used to always have a moment of silence for those who were killed. It was a sad sad day in Canadian history. “lest we forget”