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    ***
    Today my son—he’s five—asked me a question:
    â€œDad, did you find grandmother’s brother?”
    No, I reply.
    â€œWas he a good guy or a bad guy?” I can’t collect myself for an answer that he will understand, and then: “Dad, who shot him?”
    I sit and think—which one was the bad guy. Grandmother’s brother, who was 19 years old at that time and served in the Latvian Legion with the Germans, or my own grandfather, who at the same time and in the same place fought in the Soviet army? My grandfather was injured in the back on March 19, and the Legionnaire fell on March 23, leaving nothing behind—not even a small burial mound. Who was the bad guy? How can I tell this to my boy so that he might understand that they were both good, that neither of them wanted to fight?
    Without receiving an answer, he runs off to play with things, which at that moment seem much more important to him.
    After what you have read, you probably think that my son does nothing more than play with plastic guns and pretend that he is a movie superhero. Absolutely not. I have blocked Cartoon Network from my television. I cannot accept this violence that is being put into young children’s minds. Can I doubt the professionalism of the marketing division of a TV channel? Sure I can. Absolutely. It is a crime what they are declaring. I spent six years working at large companies where the target audience was aged 0-12. I know perfectly well how much money can be earned if you gain a foothold in the brains of children. Those who are impotent denounce sex on the screen, pacifists decry war and violence, and so on and forth. But I seldom hear any complaints about Spiderman or Action Batman. I watch movies about war when my son is far off in dreamland, and I hope that God is allowing him to dream happy dreams. When it comes to superheroes, it would be hard for me to think of anything that my boy has not been yet. We recently watched a movie about Zorro, and I knew that he would be changing his image soon. Sure enough—he was Batman, but he changed into Zorro.
    What does he think about my hobby? How nice it was for me to see him asleep in his bed, holding in his little hands a piece of a World War I artillery shell. You are probably laughing, but what if the metal was found in the place where his great-grandfather fought during the war? My boy knows a lot about his great-grandfather, because I have told him. I turn my knowledge into stories. “It was long, long ago, when I was not here, your mama was not here either.” “Was grandma here?” he asked. “Grandma was not here either. There was a young boy, your great-grandfather.”
    ***
    An interview with a member of the Latvian SS Legion:
    After I was graduated from medical school, I was sent to work at a hospital that at the time was full of German soldiers who had been injured on the Eastern front. The stench of rotting bodies and the suffering of the patients were too much for me to bear. I had to decide whether to stay with the slowly dying men or to go to the front lines. I had to go to the front lines no matter what—the Russians had determined my destiny in 1940. Through quick thinking, my family and I escaped our persecutors. How? I was home alone, my mother had gone to the store for some bread. A truck drove up to our house. After a moment someone was knocking on the door. I opened up. There was an officer along with a soldier who had a gun with a bayonet.
    â€œDoes so and so live here?”
    The question was about my father. I answered yes. They pushed me aside and rushed into the apartment. I knew I had to flee. I ran down the stairs, where my bicycle was standing. I jumped on the bike and rode off to warn my mother. As I was departing I could hear someone yell “Halt!” behind me. I turned into the yard of a home and, through a circuitous route, I finally got to a place where I saw my mother