It’s International Women’s Day – and here we are again – male leaders with raging voices have started yet another war. Today of all days, let us take a moment and listen to the voices of women instead.
Voices like beloved humanitarian Dr. Lotta Hitschmanova (1909-1990), a true “Soldier of Peace” whose spirit calls out to us here in Canada and around the world.
Here are a few thoughts that Lotta has left us to reflect upon.
On war itself:
War is no solution. It only creates new problems….but I continue to be an optimist, because I know how much can be achieved without war.
On the effects of war, especially on children:
World War Two was a terrible human tragedy and the children, of course, always the most defenseless, are the greatest victims. And I believe that the children are the generation of tomorrow and the great hope, for a better tomorrow and that it is the responsibility of every human being to help build.
On the effects of war, creating millions of refugees:
I became a refugee [fleeing her native Czechoslovakia after the Munich Agreement in 1938], I went to Belgium first, and when Belgium was invaded I went into France. And I was in France in Marseilles and outside of Marseilles for two years. And I experienced personally how much it hurts to be hungry.
To be a refugee, to be without a home, to be without country, to be without friends. And this is something dreadful, dreadful; you have no more roots, you have no one to turn to.
I fainted from hunger in Marseilles twice, fell in front of a street car and I was very ill. And when I came to Canada [in 1942] I weighed 98 pounds.
On losing her beloved Jewish parents, Max and Else, in the Holocaust:
There’s only one thing: to work, so that their sacrifice may not be in vain.
On governments choosing to invest in armaments:
Scientists tell us there is no longer any excuse for human starvation, yet 2/3 of mankind remain hungry, while the world [in 1969] spends 150 billion dollars a year on armaments. Won’t you invest a constructive dollar in the fight against need and poverty?
On women as leaders (Lotta was decades ahead of her time):
Development often starts with a woman. Support leadership programs for women through the USC, 56 Sparks Street, Ottawa.
I would like [my successor to be] a woman, because I think that ours is a motherly agency. That the children will have great joy and confidence in a woman than in a man. Unless the man is very loving….
On the emotional challenges of her post-conflict humanitarian work:
As a relief worker … I have been in the darkest corners of the world … and have witnessed the most heart rending scenes.
How [can I] get away from my heavy commitments? I never do, but I have outlets when there is the time. I love children, I adore playing with them.
I’m very, very fond of flowers. And when I am very discouraged and I am very, very tired, then I do not go and buy something to eat, but I go and buy some flowers. And my friends know this.
On speaking out about war and injustice:
I think that it’s one of the many, many roles of a voluntary agency to draw the attention of public opinion in a generous and rich, wonderful country like Canada. To the basic problems that humanity today is facing.
On wearing her uniform:
You see, this uniform that I wear and that so many people question. I only have it because it is so practical and the only real way of travelling to the areas where we have programs.
On her dream for the future:
To think that one day the world will be a good place to live, not only for us in the North American continent but for everyone, everywhere in the world, because it can be done.
There can be sufficient food grown and there can be sufficient schools for eager children to go to school and life can be something very beautiful if only we abandoned all these horrible destructive things, war and jealousy and only our materialistic thinking….
Lotta’s final message to us, that this world of ours has to find a way to carry forward:
We are all brothers and sisters, aiming at one single goal: to help make this torn, crying, bleeding world of ours a peaceful shrine for everyone – whatever his or her language, background or color.
With all our might we must avoid another holocaust, which would be a catastrophe. Instead of destruction we must aim at construction – and very little time is left………
David Rain