During World War II, Christine DeTroy of Brunswick spent her childhood in Hitler's Germany and made a commitment never to be silent. She is one of those people we pass by in our cars these days, as they demonstrate or hold a vigil for peace, or the environment, or justice. She joined WILPF in 1970.

"I joined during the Vietnam war. I grew up in Germany during the Hitler era; and with my experience of death and destruction, the Holocaust, kids in my school who suddenly didn't come back . . . very early on I was aware of politics. Even though I lived in an artists' community, people were so terribly afraid to speak up. I don't ever want to be afraid to speak up, never to be intimidated by what others think."

HER CROWN of white hair frames a no-nonsense face, but also a gentle one. She is a veteran of years of civil rights marches and community building, and was an active member of the NAACP in Tampa until she retired to Brunswick 12 years ago.

She never misses a Friday, standing with other groups, friends and passers-by, holding a peace vigil in Brunswick with signs that say, "War is not the answer."

Christine also says that dissent is a part of democracy, and writes letters to Congress, works on health and justice issues and plans to work with WILPF concerning Maine communities that lose their only industry to cheaper labor abroad. Her chapter is only one of 100 in the WILPF's circle of 40 nations.

In modern times it has taken on peace and justice issues concerning war, the economy, race, multinational corporations, literacy and conflict resolution. But the history of the WILPF has the energy of an action movie.

Its founders were self-empowered, politically astute women who, in 1915, tried to get world leaders to mediate World War I. These women were also well educated, privileged, not timid and not enfranchised.

As national and international leaders of women's suffrage groups, including those from countries about to go to war with the United States, they wrote proposals for mediation as the alternative to war. Hungarian Rosika Schwimmer, organizer of Hungary's first women's trade union, proposed that President Woodrow Wilson convene a permanent conference of neutral nations that would mediate conflicts.

Elna Munch, wife of the Danish minister of war, endorsed her proposal. Canada's Julia Grace Wales, a University of Wisconsin professor proposed a mediation plan, got it passed by the Wisconsin Legislature and sent it to the U.S. Congress.

Jane Addams, U.S. social work pioneer and the first U.S. woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, helped organize a Women's Peace Congress in Washington, where 3,000 women met and developed a Program for Constructive Peace. When the conference in The Hague convened in the spring of 1915, some women had traveled through war to get there.

"The largest hall in The Hague was needed for the meetings, over 2,000 often being present; and difficult as it is to conduct business with so many languages and divergent views, Miss Addams and the other officials carried on orderly and effective sessions," wrote U.S. delegate Emily Greene Balch.

Carrying the Hague proposal, two WILPF teams met with heads of state in 13 European capitals and Jane Addams with Woodrow Wilson in Washington, D.C. The United States entered the war in 1917, joining a conflict in which a total of 10 million people lost their lives, 20 million were wounded and 100,000 people were killed in gas attacks from both sides.

DURING World War II the organization struggled with the views of both pacifist and nonpacifist members. Some members joined resistance movements. Rosa Manus, who had helped to organize the Hague conference, helped refugees in Holland until she was sent to Auschwitz.

She said, "My grandchildren ask me, why do you get so involved. I tell them, I never want to be paralyzed by fear. I will be out there and speak my peace and never be silent. It is a long-term commitment. It gives other people courage."

Many of the 1915 WILPF Hague resolutions influenced the U.N. Charter and the 1948 Declaration of Human Rights. WILPF was on the U.N. Charter Conference in 1945 and pushed for the creation of UNICEF and a High Commissioner for Refugees, which now exist.

Victoria Mares-Hershey is director of development at Portland West. She also chairs the Maine State Refugee Advisory Council and is a founder and the director of the Institute for Practical Democracy, Inc.

Copyright © Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.

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