Hi all.

Well... after 5 months wait my Uncles records are "enroute via snail-mail" to me.

I want to make some comments here about my "researching my family Mystery Uncle"

For starters... I have to thankyou ALL, yet again, for being here for me, for understanding, for caring, for encouraging, and for helping me (you also help Rifleman Edward Smith when you help his neice... I know he'd love that and if he were still here he'd probably love to say so and share a few drinks and stories

As a relative researching a Canadian Prisoner of War who was executed by the Hitlerjugend back in WW2... and his story has been a big "mystery" until now... I have to say that my heart goes out to other relatives of the other POWS who were executed. These men's/peoples stories were/are still mystery and hidden a lot. THIS I find out more as I go.

NOW its also very politically incorrect...and SOCIALLY incorrect, to openly search for answers, for the most part, BECAUSE of all the circumstances for so many years. I do hear that some important records are available to certain "relatives" of the fallen soldiers tho. (I'm trying to find out more about that)

I'm coming at this thing as a family member for personal reasons ... and like so many people who have lost loved ones to "whatever" and their relatives don't know who/what/where/when/how etc...well... I want answers. I want to "know everything I can"... I want ??? ... and I want "closure" for the family as my Uncle being an "Unknown Story". On that level...personal/family, thereneeds to be the peace that comes with knowing and closure, and remembering without "questions"

And... this story goes so far beyond a personal family mystery... it hits home with the Royal Winnipeg Rifles, with Canadian Military History, and International relations etc. Its so BIG in other words.

Rifleman Edward Smith's story belongs to these places too, so I hope that when I finally get all my info gathered, that I'll be able to write something appropriate and wonderful to contribute to "history". I might need "help"...

ALSO.......... I know this would be an amazingly big project to research and put together... but why the heck has no-one compiled a book of Mini-Biographies of ALL 156 Canadian Prisoners of War who were murdered in Normandy??? (Maybe because the "truths" have been secret and mysterious until recently and that it would be so difficult to route out the stories?)

Just comments.

Karmen