Nazi boy will remember why he is free

Letters

Nov 13, 2009

Remembrance Day is a very emotional time for me, my Dad, Bert Whittle, was a Second World War hero.

I went over to the memorial service at the Royal Canadian Legion branch 163 Memorial Park on Hamilton Mountain to honor my Dad.

As I knelt there I thought about the many times I ran to my Dad at night when I awoke from a bad dream or when a windy, howling night frightened me so.

I can still feel those big old arms wrapped around me, the feel of those bulging muscles, knowing I was safe from harm, his warm heart melting my fears away.

One particularly bad night when struck with scarlet fever and delirious, my Dad told me a story about what fear is, and what it takes to stare it down.

He told me a war story I will never forget.

It was during the time of war when Holland was liberated and my Dad was going house to house rooting out the Nazis and restoring order. It was guerrilla warfare with snipers shooting from second-floor windows, booby-trapped buildings and eye-to-eye combat, up close and personal, and messy, too.

Dad's right foot got pretty sore kicking in doors to check the homes so the terrified resident could return, if they were still alive. This was a time during the war that Hitler had conscripted mere children, giving them ill-fitting uniforms and guns.

Late one full-moon evening during a house to house search, my Dad kicked open an upstairs bedroom door and ran head long into the enemy, a sniper perhaps. My Dad was so shocked at what confronted him, he hesitated on the trigger for a millisecond.

It was a little boy dressed in ill-fitting Nazi fatigues, no more than 14 years old, cowering in fear and whimpering. His gun was on the floor, it was wooden, it was clearly a toy. He was not armed.

My father had a duty to shoot him, but didn’t. He committed an act of treason to save that boy. He couldn’t bring himself to cross the moral divide, to kill a child who knew not what Hitler had done, could never fully understand the depravity and ruin Hitler had spread across Europe.

He did not know of the horrors of war, he knew the primal fear he faced staring down the barrel of my Dad's gun.

He was innocent. I know that boy remembers what my dad did, and so do his children and grandchildren because it is their duty to never forget the freedom my Dad won for them by sparing that boy's life, despite him being dressed as the enemy.

Mark-Alan Whittle, Hamilton Mountain

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