Commonplace item carries a stamp that’s anything but
A simple burlap food bag emblazoned with the Nazi symbol makes its way to the Elmira Legion
SOMETIMES IT’S THE LITTLE things that serve as reminders of much larger issues. One such memento made its way to the Elmira Legion last week, a token of dark times that gripped the planet more than 70 years ago.
With Remembrance Day on the horizon, Elmira Legion member Dale Snyder came into possession of a reminder of the largest conflict involving Canadian troops: a German army food sack with a recognizable and sometimes hated symbol stamped on it, a swastika with the Third Reich eagle.
The burlap bag, complete with some tears and rips, was made in 1944 and comes with a stamp indicating its age and who used it. The bag was used to carry food supplies such as potatoes, beets and cereals.
A friend of Snyder’s brought the bag back from Poland a few weeks ago, where it was about to be thrown out. He says anything with a swastika on it is a rare find, especially in North America.
“It is just interesting, the simple fact that we support our veterans big time, and it is part of a history that we don’t see any more,” he said. “The part that makes it so interesting, I think, is the swastika (and the eagle). I show the letters first, then spin it around and everybody’s jaw drops. Most of the crests were just a cross on the arm, but not the whole symbol, with the eagle and the swastika – it is the whole crest.”
Most Nazi memorabilia sits behind glass in a museum, or in a private collection and even then, something like this is hard to find on this side of the Atlantic Ocean. In Europe, however, Nazi artifacts are more common.
“A lot of our American and Canadian soldiers wanted to bring memorabilia back, but it got stolen. The Europeans gobbled it up like crazy and so the soldiers went to sleep and it would disappear – all the German lugers and the handguns and stuff. They all disappeared,” he shared after doing a bit of research on the bag. “Also, from what I hear, when the guys came back on the ships, and the officers on the ship asked if there was anything you were bringing back, and if there was, it went overboard. So, very few things actually hit North American soil. All this stuff never got here.”
Legion member Clayton Ash, a history buff and local author, says items like the Nazi Germany food bag serve as a reminder of darker times, but the war years aren’t something modern day societies should forget.
“It is important to share those stories. There is no other way we could identify with that kind of thing,” he said with tears welling up in his eyes. “That is what war is about. If we don’t stop and take the time to remember and learn about these things, and know how vicious and horrid and stupid it is, then we will just continue to do it, but I am not sure that we won’t anyways. It
was so stupid. They were close together, shooting at each other. It didn’t make any sense. Did nobody have any sense to say, ‘this is stupid, let’s get the barbecue out and get the booze out and invite the other side.’ The German soldiers were just as badly dealt with as the Canadian, British soldiers. It was terrible.”
Seeing the bag reminded Ash of his time as a child in Listowel, playing with his brother at the armory that used to be in town.
“I am a 1941 model, and in Listowel, we had an armory just as you were coming into town that is now the agricultural hall. That armory was built in 1914, and in about 1949 or 1948, they had a Sherman tank, and my brother and I would go out there. They had trucks, a howitzer. We climbed all over that stuff,” said Ash. “We would go down into the tank, turn the wheel which turned the gun and the turret. It was great fun. We were play fighting. There were also foxholes there where they would do training exercises. There were things about that we didn’t know at the time.”
Ash took the moment to reflect on the different conflicts involving Canadian military members and says for him, the World Wars especially were all about helping others overseas.
“It all comes together and I take offense because of some of the things that are being said like, ‘we have our freedom because our soldiers fought for it.’ That is not true. Our soldiers fought on foreign land for their freedom and Canada has a reputation for that. That is what it is. It is not about us having our freedom. It was for them. Our freedom comes from good governance. I don’t care if you vote Conservative or Liberal, it is good governance,” he said.