Thoughts on Memorial Day
May. 31st, 2004 06:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bktheirregularRather than try and voice my feelings over the current war, and try and make sure that I express my fervent hope that the troopers in the field come home safe and sound, I'll relate a story of another war.
There wasn't much doubt in hindsight that in the Second World War, the Berlin government was in the wrong. Severely in the wrong - to the point that the people who had ignited the war and lived to see it end were ultimately tried for crimes against humanity.
This isn't a story about the leaders. It's about a kid who got roped into the conflict, who probably wanted nothing more than to go home and be a father to his family.
He was with the Wehrmacht, the German army, and after Mussolini's excellent Greek adventure turned into a running disaster, and Il Duce hollered to Der Fuehrer for help, he got sent into Greece with the Wehrmacht to gain control of things.
My mother was five years old when the Germans came in, and she spent much of her childhood in enemy-occupied territory. Worse than that, though: her family home was taken as a German garrison house, and the kid from the Wehrmacht took up residence.
To hear my mother tell it, he wasn't that bad a person; there were three children in the house, and he'd play with them as though they were his own - but he was careful not to show too much affection for them, to shield the family from being marked as collaborators by the Partisans (I leave the Partisans' response to collaborators to your imaginations).
There was one incident that stood out in my mother's mind, and in mine once she related the story to me.
The Germans had a habit of exacting retribution on the general population for Partisan attacks - for every German trooper that died in a Partisan attack, the Germans would seize ten civilians and kill them. One day, my mother's father was out trying to do an errand of some sort when he got grabbed in a hostage sweep. The kid from the Wehrmacht saw what was happening, grabbed my father, and ordered him to perform some task or other, saving him from the fate of the hostages.
My grandfather survived the end of the war.
The kid from the Wehrmacht didn't.
Towards the end of the war, the Germans pulled out of Greece, retreating to their home territory, and somewhere along the way, the kid from the Wehrmacht was killed in action. I've never learned his name.
From what I know, he was a good kid in a bad war. His masters were monsters, but he likely deserved better than his fate.
Read into this story what you will.
There wasn't much doubt in hindsight that in the Second World War, the Berlin government was in the wrong. Severely in the wrong - to the point that the people who had ignited the war and lived to see it end were ultimately tried for crimes against humanity.
This isn't a story about the leaders. It's about a kid who got roped into the conflict, who probably wanted nothing more than to go home and be a father to his family.
He was with the Wehrmacht, the German army, and after Mussolini's excellent Greek adventure turned into a running disaster, and Il Duce hollered to Der Fuehrer for help, he got sent into Greece with the Wehrmacht to gain control of things.
My mother was five years old when the Germans came in, and she spent much of her childhood in enemy-occupied territory. Worse than that, though: her family home was taken as a German garrison house, and the kid from the Wehrmacht took up residence.
To hear my mother tell it, he wasn't that bad a person; there were three children in the house, and he'd play with them as though they were his own - but he was careful not to show too much affection for them, to shield the family from being marked as collaborators by the Partisans (I leave the Partisans' response to collaborators to your imaginations).
There was one incident that stood out in my mother's mind, and in mine once she related the story to me.
The Germans had a habit of exacting retribution on the general population for Partisan attacks - for every German trooper that died in a Partisan attack, the Germans would seize ten civilians and kill them. One day, my mother's father was out trying to do an errand of some sort when he got grabbed in a hostage sweep. The kid from the Wehrmacht saw what was happening, grabbed my father, and ordered him to perform some task or other, saving him from the fate of the hostages.
My grandfather survived the end of the war.
The kid from the Wehrmacht didn't.
Towards the end of the war, the Germans pulled out of Greece, retreating to their home territory, and somewhere along the way, the kid from the Wehrmacht was killed in action. I've never learned his name.
From what I know, he was a good kid in a bad war. His masters were monsters, but he likely deserved better than his fate.
Read into this story what you will.
