The Mirror of History: A May 9th Reflection on World War II and Memory

This essay is dedicated to the memory of Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Azerbaijani, Hungarian and Yugoslav fighters who lost their lives in the war against Nazism.

A Duty of Remembrance

In writing this, I am fulfilling a duty of remembrance. If I can ignite a single spark of understanding in the minds of a younger generation about those who built the world I knew, I will consider my task complete. The political divides and ways of thinking of the last century are so different from today's that as I travel through my memories, I feel lost in the mists of the past. Only a few unforgettable frames emerge from the fog—frames that stand as silent witnesses to the history of our human family. Like old photographs, they watch you even when you do not see them, a silent and constant critique.

A child’s body in the dirt calls out to me. A woman’s scream echoes as I tap these keys. Each bundle of sparks glistening on the snow tells a new tale. What sparks are these? Not flashes of insight or some great natural phenomenon. I will return to them in a moment.

The Imperative to Remember

Why write about the past? What strange habit places this burden upon us? After all, who are we to discuss events that shaped the lives and deaths of millions? But we must speak. We must tell, write, and ask, because the essence of writing is to understand and remember. And we must remember today more than ever, for we seem to stand once again at the edge of a dark abyss. Humanity needs to be remembered and understood to find a way out. That path can only be found by understanding the past in relation to the present.

The images in my head are more real than any war movie. As I wander through them, I hear the humming sounds of history. A woman stands at the edge of a pit—it must be Kerch—tearing her hair and screaming over rows of the dead, whose only crime was to be alive in that place, at that time. On a snowy morning, a child weeps over a body frozen to the ground. Another, barefoot, searches for family in the ashes of a burnt-out village.

Sparks on the Steppe

As these images surface, I find myself in the carriage of a train from the last century. It plunges noisily into the winter night, shooting bright, blue-white sparks onto the rails. They stab like knives into the desolate, frozen steppe, flooding everything with momentary light. Through the dirty window, I see a young man lost in thought, sipping his coffee, his face illuminated by the passing flashes. On his table are books: Aleksandr Bek’s Outside Moscow, Ilya Ehrenburg’s The Storm, Boris Polevoy’s A Story About a Real Man.

The train’s monotonous rhythm is like that of an old man, grunting as he plows through the darkness. It is an Orient Express, traveling from Ankara to Eskişehir, yet the sparks from its worn rails illuminate more than just the Turkish steppe. In this wasteland, where our own War of Independence was fought, the flashes reveal the khaki-green ghosts of soldiers marching to the front. And not just them. In the eternity of time, perhaps these sparks also reveal the prisoners of war, the wounded, transported to their deaths in makeshift wagons on cold winter nights.

They say nothing changes under the sun. Likewise, nothing changes under the stars.

Challenging Our Own Narratives

Millions of people died in World War II. Of these, 27 million were citizens of the Soviet Union, the country that dealt the final, fatal blow to Nazi Germany. The largest and most destructive battles of the war took place on its territory. The actions of the current Russian government do not change this historical fact.

My humble warning begins here. When we interpret history through the lens of our current emotions, values, or political positions, we lose a significant part of the truth. I see this happening today among young people, and while I can understand their perspective, it is a dangerous drift. The young man on the train was also like this, just from the opposite side; he could only see the world through the window of the books he read.

Opposition to an unjust war today should not lead us to deny the concrete facts of the past. On the contrary, a genuine desire for peace requires that we learn from history, not distort it. Facts demand objectivity. Only by facing them without bias can we develop the social consciousness needed to build a better world, free from the mistakes of the past.

To have a valid historical viewpoint, we must examine events in their own context and accurately define the chain of cause and effect. We must look at events from multiple perspectives, not just one side’s narrative. By peeling back the outer layers, we can break the shell of reality and understand its complex structure. This is the only way to make objective evaluations, unaligned with any of today’s political forces.

The peoples of the world paid a terrible price to end World War II. The bombing of cities and the razing of villages forged nations through collective suffering. The victory that followed was not merely military; it was a symbol of humanity's struggle against darkness, and all who fought that darkness have a right to celebrate it.

Historic days like these remind us how precious peace is. I hope they remind the young of this as well.

Written by Onur Aydemir
9 May 2025, Ankara