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Monique Keiran: Canadians pay too little attention to our history

Seventy-five years ago this week, Allied troops launched Operation Overlord, the long-awaited and meticulously planned campaign to retake western Europe from Nazi Germany.
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Second World War -- German Prisoners taken by Canadian troops at Juno Beach, D-Day, during the invasion of Europe, on June 6, 1944. THE CANADIAN PRESS/National Archives of Canada, Frank L. Dubervill, PA-133754, *MANDATORY CREDIT*

Seventy-five years ago this week, Allied troops launched Operation Overlord, the long-awaited and meticulously planned campaign to retake western Europe from Nazi Germany.

Early on June 6, 1944, 7,500 bombers and fighters — including 15 Royal Canadian Air Force squadrons — bombarded the formidable military defences of the Normandy coastline and inland targets. Below, 110 Royal Canadian Navy ships were among the destroyers and other vessels shelling German positions onshore and clearing mines from the waters off the French beaches.

Of the 150,000 Allied troops that stormed the Normandy beaches that morning, 14,000 Canadian troops disembarked at Juno Beach, the centre of the British front. The Canadians’ goal for the day was to establish footholds along the eight-kilometre stretch of beach, then push inland toward the city of Caen, an important communications and transport hub for the occupying German army.

This was D-Day — the beginning of the end of the Second World War.

By day’s end, Canadian troops had captured the beach and penetrated further inland than any other D-Day Allied troops. Some 359 were killed, and 715 wounded. By the time the battle for Normandy was over 10 weeks later, more than 5,000 Canadians were killed and 13,000 wounded.

Eleven long months of fighting later, Hitler’s war machine lay in ruins, and victory in Europe was declared on May 8, 1945. On Sept. 2, 1945, the Japanese government formally surrendered, officially ending the six-year-long Second World War.

According to a recent Ipsos poll, just slightly more than two-thirds of Canadians know what D-Day is. Fewer than 65 per cent know that Canada participated, and less than half know Canadian forces landed on Juno Beach.

The Ipsos results divide along demographic lines. Atlantic Canada residents tended to know more than other Canadians, while British Columbians fell in the middle of the pack.

In addition, the older the person who was polled, the more she or he was likely to know about D-Day events and Canada’s role. This is hardly surprising. The parents, aunts and uncles of baby boomers either fought in or lived through the war, and their experiences, stories, pain and memories would have been fairly fresh as boomers grew up. Many Generation Xers have older family members who experienced the war as kids — the stories shared around the dinner table retained personal resonance.

By the 1990s, however, when millennials would have been old enough to start paying attention to the bigger world around them, the Second World War was taking on the patina of “history.” It was blurring into abstractions of another age, obscured by time’s own thickened scar tissue.

Other news and concerns grabbed the limelight, then passed it along — other wars, economic tailspins, the constant distraction and call for attention of online technology, the basic need to make a living, keep a roof over your head, support a family.

We can’t blame millennials for that. Canadian society and culture as a whole have rarely paid much attention to the past. Artifacts representing our history are seldom more than 150 years old, as well as uncommon and not particularly valued.

Century-old buildings are torn down to make way for slick, modern condo or office buildings in the name of profits, taxes, and efficiency. Longtime family businesses are pushed out of high-traffic areas by high rents, replaced by fast-food outlets and multinational chain outlets. All of us enjoy the convenience of the digital economy, which is all about speed, moving on to the next big thing ASAP, and blurring the boundaries between individuals, cultures and identity.

The time needed to learn and upgrade the skills we need to navigate the modern world — the time and attention needed to just keep pace with today — leaves little time to learn about our history, recall the lessons of the past, and think about how its implications continue to shape today.

In 1905, Spanish philosopher George Santayana said: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Winston Churchill put his own spin on the quote in 1948: “Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it.”

Failure to remember or failure to learn — the result is the same.