Our numbers are dwindling.

We are the generation that witnessed the world-changing events of 80 years ago.

The first occurred on May 8, 1945.

I was 10 years old, sitting in class at P.S. 31, Bayside, N.Y., when the staticky tone of the loudspeaker interrupted our work.

“This is Miss Murren. I’m happy to tell you the war in Europe has ended.”

Miss Murren was the stern, no-nonsense principal of our school, and she was a woman of few words.

We sixth graders dubbed our school “Old Lady Murren’s Concentration Camp.”

As sixth graders, about to graduate from elementary school, we thought we were hot.

If we’d known of the cruelty of concentration/extermination camps, I hope we would not have been so glib.

World War II had been a backdrop in our lives since we were 6 or 7 years old.

We kn

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