Gransnet forums

Chat

75 Years Ago

(42 Posts)
Urmstongran Sun 17-Nov-19 13:39:13

I’m sure I recall experiments where Jewish people were lined up one behind the other and the first in line shot to see how many people the bullet could pass through.

And Mengeles with his his ‘medical studies’ that I just can’t bring myself to repeat.

Urmstongran Sun 17-Nov-19 13:35:52

A Heartbreaking account Evie64

M0nica Sun 17-Nov-19 13:34:54

annodomino. It is not those who remember the war who voted leave, in fact they are more likely to vote remain for the reasons I gave. blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2019/03/21/not-all-the-over-65s-are-in-favour-of-brexit-britains-wartime-generation-are-almost-as-pro-eu-as-millennials/

So over 80s+/- are more likely to have voted remain. So the death of older voters is mainly the deaths of people likely to have voted Remain. The leave vote is concentrated in the 60-75 age group. Most of them will have a good 10 years or more of life left in them.

Urmstongran Sun 17-Nov-19 13:34:36

oh Not Brexit again!!

Evie64 Sun 17-Nov-19 13:25:58

Many years ago I used to work with a lady who was from Belgium. She was part of the underground during the war and helped to get many stranded airman to safety. She once told me that when the SS came to her small town, they were removing a Jewish family out of their 4th storey apartment next to her house. She said they threw the family's belongings into the street and then threw the 9 month old baby out of the 4th story window. If that wasn't shocking enough, they placed a Nazi guard on the body which was made to lay there for a week before they removed it as a "lesson" to anyone thinking of helping their Jewish neighbours. Still makes me cry just thinking about it. I think that was the most shocking true account war story I ever heard, and I've heard a few.

threexnanny Sun 17-Nov-19 13:25:23

I agree with MONICA too. It was the main reason I voted to into the EU all those years ago and a good reason for staying now.

annodomini Sun 17-Nov-19 13:21:20

And yet - reputedly - it is our generation who can remember the war and should appreciate the decades of peace in Europe, who have contributed to the small majority who voted for the folly of Brexit.

EllanVannin Sun 17-Nov-19 13:15:56

I agree with you Monica.

M0nica Sun 17-Nov-19 13:06:58

I was born in 1943, but I can remember the Nuremburg Trials and the many books that came out in the early 50s narrating the horrors.

If ever there was a good reason for supporting staying in the EU, it is the peace and safety that this political alliance has brought Western Europe and is now extending over the whol continent.

threexnanny Sun 17-Nov-19 13:04:44

Horrible indeed, but one of my uncle's was a POW with the Japanese so it wasn't just the Germans. In fact it was the British who first made concentration camps so we can't feel virtuous either!

Rufus2 Sun 17-Nov-19 12:46:02

Good Evening again; Well, what an evening, Just finished another 1 hour SBS prog. similar to the previous one except that this one concerned GI PoWs and Hungarian Jews, sharing the same fate. All being forced to work building an underground factory and literally starved to death with no medical attention.
It repeated previous accounts of how the local German population knew what was going on in these concentration camps and were shown spitting on the GIs as they were marched through the town.
Horrible!

BlueBelle Sun 17-Nov-19 12:43:54

Rufus it makes me cry too and the worst thing is no one learns it is on the verge of happening all over again and in some parts of the world genocide has happened since 1945 but we don’t hear much about it if it doesn’t involve us
Why can’t we all accept others whether they look, think or are like or unlike us I can never understand those who can’t accept differences and those who can’t share
I don’t believe really in heaven or hell so there is no comfort in thinking they are in ever lasting flames or anything else

I think you are right to bring it up we all need to think about it more than we do it should be taught in every school in the world

Urmstongran Sun 17-Nov-19 12:29:10

I could cry just thinking about it. The awful wrenching of those poor babies from their mummies.

Our baby granddaughter will be 3y in a few weeks. It doesn’t bear thinking about.

Fennel Sun 17-Nov-19 12:26:26

Rufus - I'm the same. I was born in 1936 so have memories of wartime. As you say, our future in the UK could have been so different if Hitler hadn't changed his mind at the last moment. Then poor Russia suffered.
As for the Jewish Holocaust, how can anyone deny it happened when there's so much documentary evidence?
Your country also fought and had many losses. With New Zealand. You should be proud.
I've done a lot of reading around the subject and wish I could have more influence on later generations, many of whom have no idea.

eazybee Sun 17-Nov-19 11:01:44

Yes, I agree with you; it is right that these atrocities should not be forgotten.

Gonegirl Sun 17-Nov-19 10:59:59

Yes. It was all unbelievably horrible. Can't believe it happened in my lifetime. When I was three other little three year olds were being taken to the death camps.

Thank God that time has gone, and pray God it never returns.

Rufus2 Sun 17-Nov-19 10:55:12

Feeling weary and ill at ease. Have just watched a prog. on our SBS(Multicultural) TV channel called "Hitler's Holocaust Railways" narrated by Chris Tarrant. It's probably been on TV before, but this was my first sighting and I found it so horrifying that I was almost in tears, even after all these years, being reminded of how the poor souls were shepherded into groups of toddlers (too young to work, therefore to die),; able bodied men and women, to be workers in concentration camps; ill and elderly to die. Interviews with a few survivors only reinforced the horror of it all. I'm not ashamed to admit I was almost in tears by the end and wondering how things might have been in Britain if the Germans had succeeded in crossing the Channel. They would have had no reason to act differently. When the first films were shown after the camps were liberated we were promised that they would be shown repeatedly for ever more and I'm thankful that SBS, which has strong leanings towards European matters appears to be honouring that promise.
Another Hitler prog. is due on SBS later this evening; "Inside Hitler's GI Death Camp" about 390 GI PoWs sent to a concentration camp in Berga, Germany. I've never heard of that before!
I appreciate this is (mostly) before your time and I apologise for unburdening it, but I"m still disturbed by it all.
OoRoo