What would you have done?

[snowman]

Excellent thread; thanks to the OP for raising the issue, and to the others for your contributions, especially dcxplant and others for sharing stories from your families.

Regards,
Andy

 

[steveno]

sometimes I wonder if the Germans on base had anything hidden in their closet. I got to Rhein Main AB in 1970 which was 25 years after the war was over so it you add 15 years to the 25 years if any of the Germans had managed to keep things hidden they wouldn't want anybody to find out about.

I do believe most Germans knew what was going on with the camps just because there was so many of the camps of various sizes. you just didn't go down to the local gestapo office and ask where your neighbors went to. they may have been very good friends but who do you value more , your family or your neighbors?

I did run into a few Germans that truly believed that hitler was a victim of bad press.

 

[dcxplant]

I am Polish by blood. My last name is rare. Rare enough that everyone on this earth with my last name is related to me.

I had multiple relatives die at the hand of the German army. This is part of war. However, I had one relative who was a resistance fighter. The nazis discovered his identity, and the ss murdered his family.

I have no ill will to the average german soldier. But the nazis were evil. I would like to think I would have had the fortitude to fight back.

So terrible.

As part of war reparations, some of Germany was given to Poland. Stalin had his land-grab of Poland to the east, but that's another story. Poland's west and east borders both essentially shifted west.

I went to my family's farm two years ago to visit. We had a farm, a butcher shop, and a blacksmith's shop. I found a horseshoe in the rubble where my grandfather's blacksmith shop was and brought it home.

The Polish family living in our old house, as well as all of the Poles I met on this visit, were so gracious and we shared stories. While we were searching for any German or English speakers so we could communicate, we met a wonderful old Polish lady whom had been a nanny in Germany for some years.

She invited us in for tea, helped us locate our family's farm (based on my dad's descriptions as we had him on a cell phone). There were no hard feelings, just a touch of sadness, and more importantly, a sense of relief that there could be peace and well-being between people.

It was quite inspirational and we were invited to come back.

The sight of a German car with Berliner plates stirred up the whole village, and we were surrounded by about 30 villagers. We had a great time.

Concentration camps were far away from our village. But they knew that people, Jews and non-Jews were disappearing to "camps" and not coming back.

I can't speak for other families, but mine had no men and no weapons.

 

[butchd]

Snowman, these thoughts live with me. I used to fish a few hundred yards from a Japanese detainment camp. I drank from fountains for "White Only". I took no actions then. I have had trouble lately feeling charitable toward people who practice beheading. I did not expect to have heard from people who survived the Polish and German persecution in the first and second generations. I only hope that I have not caused them painful thoughts.

 

[dcxplant]

butchd,
I'm grateful for the thread. We cannot afford to forget what tyranny can bring.

 

[arjay]

My folks and a lot of their friends really went through hell because of the nazis.This is why we have to keep a very close eye on governments,especially our own.I fear fascists more than lefties.

 

[Smoke]

I watched a documentary called A is for Auschwitz that put the whole thing in perspective for me. In one scene the interviewed an old Jewish woman who had survived the camp; she said that her job was putting bodies into the crematorium. One day she was working and Josef Mengle happened to be inspecting her area.

Long story short she pulled a live baby out of the pile she said Mengle just stood there and watched her and she knew that her options were throw the kid in the oven or get killed and have someone else throw both her and the kid in the oven. So she threw the kid in the oven.

I can't judge her

 

[MX5Fan]

Excellent thread; thanks to the OP for raising the issue, and to the others for your contributions, especially dcxplant and others for sharing stories from your families.

Regards,
Andy

I am Jewish, proud of it, and I would share stories from my "some" of my family, except they were murdered by the Nazis and their supporters in the Warsaw Ghetto.

One of the reasons I am an ardent supported of the 2nd Amendment of our amazing Constitution is that history can and does repeat itself and clearly there is Evil among us.

I for one, would have joined the resistance even at my own or my families peril.

 

[BLACKHAWKNJ]

Instead of "joining the Resistance" I would probably have been a Lone Wolf. Don't have to worry about anybody betraying you, whether by conviction, cowardice or duress, don't have to worry about anyone infiltrating your group. What was it Benjamin Franklin said-"Three may keep a Secret if two of them are dead." I read a book about Occupied France, cited one town that its solitary assassin, he kept the Germans on edge-and was never caught. And if you put on a good show of loyalty and enthusiasm-what was it Julia said to Winston Smith in "1984"-shout the loudest, carry the banner the highest at the rallies-if you keep the little rules you can break the big ones."

 

[CO_Kid]

I watched a documentary called A is for Auschwitz that put the whole thing in perspective for me. In one scene the interviewed an old Jewish woman who had survived the camp; she said that her job was putting bodies into the crematorium. One day she was working and Josef Mengle happened to be inspecting her area.

Long story short she pulled a live baby out of the pile she said Mengle just stood there and watched her and she knew that her options were throw the kid in the oven or get killed and have someone else throw both her and the kid in the oven. So she threw the kid in the oven.

I can't judge her

Nor can I. I cannot fathom living with that memory.

 

[feralmerril]

Common sense tells me our government HAD to know of the atrocities going on LONG before it became common knowledge. Today we know of the atrocities going on in the mid east. Tonight, perhaps due to the pressure of us knowing maybe things will change in that area.
Read these numbers. WW2 Statistics
Now tell me, whats the odds of had all of the soldiers been born in the OPPOSITE enemy countrys, would all, or any of them at all rebelled and joined the other side?

 

[budster]

My uncle was in the underground during the war. He would help smuggle out Jews and British Pilots through Greece to the Med. He was captured by the ss, jailed and interrogated but, because of his blue eyes and blonde hair and his perfect German, he was let go and went back to doing what he was doing. He never ever talked about his stories to the family but, I finally got him to tell all and they were hair raising.
After the war he was a witness to an ss LT. and a Capt. on trial for war crimes in Greece. The LT. spit on him, and was lamenting that he didn't kill him when he had the chance. My uncle related that he was present when they were hung and made shure that he laughed at them as they were walking up the gallows.

 

[YogiBear]

Aloha,

As an AJA of the post war generation, I have friends and relatives that were interned.

After Dec 7, 1941 my Dad was picked up and questioned.

He Never talked about WW2 and we Never knew what he did during the war.

I have/had an Uncle in the 442(think movie "Go For Broke", the short GI escorting German POWs ducking under a tree limb and the 442 guy just walking under without bending over to clear), I always think of him. He was that short.

I married a girl(of Germanic ancestry) from Minnesota. She knew of the Japanese being interned in Minnesota, but not WHY.

I Explained to her in detail the WHY of Americans of Japanese Ancestry being interned and what happened to their properties.
Needless to say she had no idea that it happened in the US and was upset.

In the end I asked her that IF such a thing were to happen today, Would she let me get interned.

She said, "NO, that's Why we have our Guns."

She can trace her ancestors back before the Revolution. One even Signed the Declaration of Independence.

She has family that fought on Both sides of the "Civil War"

Seems that her family is a long line of "Pain in the Asses"

 

[mike from st pete]

The Rape of NanKing, Bataan March, Unit 731. War is atrocious plain and simple.

 

[MX5Fan]

The killing of the Jews and other minorities was not war, it was genocide with complicity in much of Europe and a blind eye by the US.