"No one takes my life; I lay it down freely."

As promised, here is my favorite picture from Hamburg, the site of a recent three-week excursion. The German words can be translated as, "Forty thousand sons of the city gave their lives for you."

I passed this monument every morning on the way to my temporary work assignment. Leaving aside the question of the morality of war -- especially World War I, which comprises the reference dates at the bottom of the monument -- I found this reminder especially poignant.

The German word liessen, translated above as "gave," comes from the verb lassen. Lassen means literally "to let." Forty thousand sons of the city let their lives [be sacrificed] for you.