Watching events unfold in Ukraine has unleashed fragments of thought that do not form a logical or coherent pattern in my own mind. Instead, the link between these images is emotional and charged with psychological associations. As a Canadian, I have never experienced the horrors of war first hand. All I know is the little snippets imparted from my mother and grandfather. They spoke infrequently of those times in the Second World War, but the stories they did tell made an indelible impression on me. Rubble-strewn streets, soldiers, bodies. Explosions and gunfire. Forced labour in German factories; my mother having...