If Day — The Nazi Invasion of Winnipeg [with Francis Horton] || CIAS #32

So, I promised you Nazi stuff.

We're going to do Nazi stuff.

Heck yeah.

To start this out here, I want to do a little theater of the mind.

You can close your eyes if you want to.

You're going to imagine this kind of vignette as we begin.

It is February of 1942.

You are 14 years old, and your mother has sent you down the road in your snowy, isolated city to pick up some food from the restaurant owned by the parents of one of your friends from school.

It's on the main street in your neighborhood, a mosaic of cultures, where you speak Yiddish intermingled with a whole bevy of languages that the people around you call their own.

You're aware of events going on around you.

You've been attending a kind of openly socialist school in the area.

You're surrounded by people heavily involved in the labour movement.

So you've never yet felt the war, but it's still unavoidable in your life.

Your older brother is out there serving in an armoured regiment somewhere.

You're not sure exactly where, but it's much farther away than you've ever been from home.

The uncertainty has always kept a mild anxiety going inside you like a pilot light.

You've heard of the atrocities, the rumors spread wildly.

Just a few months ago, you'd gained some new classmates, a pair of Jewish brothers who'd had to flee their homes for fear of being rounded up.

They've been settling in.

Everyone is just trying to go about their lives, you as much as anyone, on a cold morning like this one.

Today, though, is very different.

You've heard gunfire and explosions, and a waft of smoke irritates your lungs.

You never thought the war would ever come to your door, but here it is.

It is February of 1942.

You are 14 years old and you have just encountered your first uniformed armed Nazi soldier.