While hundreds of people wearing red poppies will gather Monday for the Remembrance Day ceremony at the Victoria cenotaph, a short distance away, at another much smaller ceremony, people will be wearing white poppies.
For the fifth consecutive year, the white poppy ceremony will mark the passing of all civilians and military who have died because of war.
About 20 regulars show up each year for the ceremony, held at the monument on Menzies Street near Belleville Street that commemorates Canadians who fought in the Spanish Civil War.
“I wear both red and white [poppies],” said Victoria activist Alison Acker, who attends the white poppy ceremony. The red poppy ceremony has “too many military, too many guns.”
Acker said her father died after being bombed in an air raid shelter and her sister was widowed at 19.
“My first husband died 18 years after service as a paratrooper,” she said. “He had recurrent fevers from the jungles of the Far East and post-traumatic stress disorder.”
The white poppy pays tribute to the civilians who have died in wars, Acker said.
“I’m not anti-military — I’m for peace. I don’t think many people think wars are glorious anymore.”
The first white poppies were sold by the Co-operative Women’s Guild in 1933.
White poppies will be distributed for free between noon and 1 p.m. Thursday beside Victoria city hall during the Victoria Women in Black Vigil, a silent ceremony opposing war and violence.
