Life After WWII

            After the war we rediscovered our zest for life and appreciated once more our cherished freedom. Before the war we were similar to herds of cattle, indifferent to life.  It was only with the cessation of the fighting that we were able to appreciate the precious beauty of life.  Actually it was because of the war that we acquired a lust for life-- for all the needs that life requires us to fill in terms of food, work and sleep--and we appreciated the simple evenings spent on our peaceful threshold.  We talked and told stories, while lovers were hiding in dark corners, protected by the complicity of the night. 

             But in this new life we felt some emptiness, created by the loss of relatives or friends.  We tried to go on as if nothing had happened, but it was very hard not to remember those we loved.  They were part of the familiar scene of our town and we could not forget their faces, their voices, their personalities and their participation in the life of the community.  Despite our joy in having survived the atrocities of the war, we were reminded of them each time we stumbled over the ruins still congesting our streets.   How could we forget them when we came across their widows and children?  We could also have done without those new military cemeteries, the American, the British, the German, and the Italian.  We might excuse and forgive, but could we really forget?

            Everything is changed, and this change is the prelude to a new era that has already transformed our universe and will therefore present us with distressing events, an era of mistrust.  The powerful nations will go the way of force, using as their motto "Si vis pacem, para bellum."  They will commit themselves to technology and science, to the detriment of such values as faith and love.  We will see the beginning of an age of doubt which may never end.  Nations will see their people uprooted and living in exile, away from their loved ones, and suffering from nostalgia.