The Second World War is a defining event in Canada’s history, and the accounts of heroism and sacrifice emergent from the War — from the Beaches at Dieppe, to the hedgerows of Normandy, to the flooded fields of Holland — have the unique power to forge a national mystique.

The oral accounts of veterans, which the Testaments project has compiled on digital video, provide the definitive record of the War’s vast human impact. In their vivid recollections, their tears and their laughter, the past — how it felt, how it looked — is illuminated for every viewer, young and old alike.