Jewish Normandy veteran Mervyn Kersh was proud to serve his country but lamented that the modern United Kingdom is ultimately worse than the one he fought for.
Kersh, who turned 101 in 2025, arrived in Normandy, France, a mere three days after the D-Day invasion began in June 1944. He was later stationed near the infamous Bergen-Belsen concentration camp when the camp was liberated by fellow British troops in April 1945. Since then, he has lamented what happened to his home country, noting it has gone downhill and sees rising antisemitism.
"I think it [the war] was a waste of time, because the benefits we got from it, the wartime camaraderie and everyone, almost everybody, mucked in [with] whatever they could do," he told the Daily Mail. "'Whatever [way] they could help somebody else they did. That wasn't just in the army. You don't get that now, no."
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The veteran offered a grim assessment of his country's current state, saying it has "gone right downhill."
"I know the population is changing. Some are leaving, and then others are coming who have no understanding or knowledge of what this country was like, not only just its history, but its morals," he said.
Mervyn "insists he has 'no objection' to genuine refugees fleeing for their lives."
The veteran offered somewhat similar pessimistic comments after the horrific October 7 attack by Hamas, when he lamented that his efforts in World War II did not stop it. "It was a waste of time. We are going through the same thing again."
He did a somewhat more optimistic, but still grim, interview more recently this week with the BBC, headlined, "Honoured veteran, 101, disappointed with UK."
In this interview he argued that while his service "was worth it," nonetheless, "It's disappointing what's turned out now."
"What's disappointing is the antisemitism that I see everywhere, hear everywhere, or read," the veteran, who has been honored for his talks about the Holocaust, said.
Other World War II veterans from the U.K. and U.S. have questioned whether their effort and sacrifice during the war were worth it, after seeing their homelands change dramatically.
A 100-year-old British World War II veteran, Alec Penstone, was asked in November what Britain means to him. He replied, "My message is, I can see in my mind’s eye, rows and rows of white stones, of all the hundreds of my friends and everybody else, that gave their lives – for what?"
"The country of today… No, I'm sorry, the sacrifice wasn’t worth the result that it is now."
He added, "What we fought for was our freedom – we fought for it. Even now, it's a darn sight worse than when I fought for it."
Across the Atlantic, an American World War II veteran made similar comments in 2024. As Americans recognized the 80th anniversary of D-Day, veteran Ronald "Rondo" Scharfe reflected on his service in Normandy, France, as he spoke to Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum.
"The real truth? I feel like a foreigner in my own country lots of times and I don’t like it. It makes my heart real heavy," he said. "I just hope we can pull out of this, there's too much Hollywood going on in Washington all the time — the important subjects they don’t cover. So I hope all the guys rally up and go back and straighten it all out."
