The Healing Symbol: How False Mythology and Vodka Helped My Grandfather Cope with War's Trauma

Symbol is what gathers the shards of the soul and puts them back together again.

My grandpa, who fought in WW2, never spoke about it. When I asked him as a child to tell me about the war, he would point me to Soviet movies about the war. There were many. And they were good. I liked them very much. They told a story of heroism.

Years after, it dawned on me why grandpa was so quiet about his experience and why he watched those movies o…