The Soldiers

We are in the season of Remembrance, so I thought I would post this stained glass window from the church I attend. The memorial window is for Sarah and Harold Rushworth. Harold died in the First World War; his name appears on the memorial gate leading into the church, and on a lime tree in the village (one was planted for each villager who died in the war). 

The window depicts Harold and, I presume, his wife, as valiant medieval knights, in pursuit of God's justice. I'm not entirely sure that metaphor applies to the first world war, possibly more so to the second. But the loss of so many men from such a small village was keenly felt, and we humans often consecrate our causal beliefs as part of the validation for action. Regardless, it does not lessen the impact the loss of Harold, and the others who died had on the area. 

Interestingly I've just finished reading a book about the end of the second world war and its immediate aftermath, from the perspective of Jewish teenagers freed from concentration camps. They tried to return initially to their country of origin, but the hostility to them remained, and their homes had been taken. Eye opening book.