Dvarim: Shabbath Chazon

My mother (a"h) was hiding in a wooded area, in a hole in the ground, generally covered with a mat of branches and leaves.  Food was intermittent and had the quality of Seattle compost.   In 1944, when  she estimated that Tisha Baav  had arrived, based upon the  solar month and the lunar cycle,  she decided to fast.  Perhaps, as the war dragged on, food became somewhat more plentiful and skipping a day was more tolerable.  Perhaps, as the Soviet army approached, food was scarcer.   Perhaps she was hopeful that the liberation would come soon and she wanted to do an act of re-dedication to Judaism.  The fast had an element of  correction for the New Years party she had gone to, against her father's wishes, just before the German/Soviet invasion. 

The parsha talks about the first conquests in the environs of he promised land.  The history of conquest is given:  The  dependents of Esau replaced the Chori; the Ammonites replaced the Zumzumites.  Now the Israelites were taking over the lands of Sichon and Og.  

My parents' story makes me consider  what that conquest felt like to the people who were being replaced, those people hiding from the invading army, who may have hidden from the last invading army.  How many invading armies had my ancestors hidden from? 

 Tisha Baav is the commemoration our defeat, when we were vanquished, when we fell from a position of power  Is  Tisha Baav, in part,  an expiation for our acts of conquest?