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Post by Jaga on Jun 14, 2014 15:30:18 GMT -7
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Post by kaima on Jun 14, 2014 23:33:05 GMT -7
Jaga, your uncle was fortunate to live a long life with the dangers that he encountered so early.
I am now wondering how he ended the war and his transition to civilian life proceeded, how difficult a time he had in transitionining back to being Polish after having served the German army, with questions of his loyalty and idealolgy.
He is fortunate to have served on the front line a relatively short time. From my own army time in the US army I came to think of 17 year olds as generally too tender for such a life, and from encountering veterans I still firmly believe that.
Did he emmigrate after the war or go back to Poland and the life under the communists. If the latter than it would have added to his difficulty in life, I imagine, having fought against them in the war.
On the Condor flight to Europe I met a woman in her 70´s who knew her history pretty well, but also because she knew one woman nazi who still believed life under <hitler was good, and nazi values were great, she expected Germany to be full of nazis today. I did tell her how it is just the opposite today, that Germans are vastly against nazism, and that we are into the thrid generation after the war, so naturally things have changed. I did not think to point out all of the nazis, nationalists, royalists and anti-bolschevicks who ran off to America after the war to escape the punishment under the Russians.
As far as people quickly believing propaganda, we need look no further than our own nation and the latest Iraq War. Sorry, not the current one, but the one in 2003 when we broke Iraq. You break it, you buy it, said the porcelain dealer. We broke it and will continue paying for it. That and our continuing Charlie Wilson´s war from the Reagan years.
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Post by Jaga on Jun 14, 2014 23:43:36 GMT -7
my uncle did not believe in the Nazi propaganda, but he had to serve since it was obligatory for Poles from Silesia. Otherwise his family would be killed. For some times during the war he wanted to be caught...He knew that there is a difference between SS and the normal German citizens. He was in the soldier camp soon after the war, like all German soldiers, but happily he was able to escape, otherwise he might die of hunger or disease. My family from Silesia was very anti-Nazi, they were actually more anti-Nazi that people from other regions of Poland who were more anti-Soviet. Silesians at least from Polish part of Silesia did not really experience Soviet atrocities.
Think about this poor Idaho soldier from Afghanistan. My uncle did not have a choice, but he did not do anything wrong. He was lucky enough not to be send on Eastern/Russian front except the very end of war. If you read through one/two articles you would see his stories....
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Post by Nictoshek on Jun 15, 2014 4:03:15 GMT -7
Sorry to hear that. I also had a wujek named Franek and had fond loving memories of him scything the rye fields of my grandfather's farm by the flowing Warta. A lovely soul really.
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Post by Jaga on Jun 15, 2014 8:44:48 GMT -7
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Post by pieter on Jun 15, 2014 13:58:47 GMT -7
Jaga,
Very interesting story of Franek Gwiozdzik. I like to see the Second World War, the First World War and other armed conflicts from as many point of views (possitions) as possible to reach an objective view. I recognize a lot in what you say. In my Polish family there was also that difference you describe. The familymembers from Poznan were more anti-German (anti-Nazi) and the familymembers from the East (near Lithuanian border, in Tworki near Augustow) were more anti-Sovjet. But most of them were both anti-Nazi and anti-Sovjet, because they realized that Poland was treated badly by both systems, regimes and occupiers. But it is a fact that Eastern-Poland suffered more from the Sovjets and Western-Poland more from the Nazi's because the Poles from the West and thus Silesia were occupied longer by the Nazi's. People from Eastern-Poland by the way ofcourse suffered from both the Sovjet (1939-1941) and the Nazi (1941-1945) occupations and maltreatment.
Again I heard the same story of my Polish family. The difference of opinion about the Nazi Germans/Austrians and the Sovjet Russians/Ukrainians. Some Poles in South-Eastern Poland whom family were massacred by the Ukrainian resistance will have some anti-Ukrainian sentiment by the way.
Cheers,
Pieter
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Post by Jaga on Jun 15, 2014 14:25:58 GMT -7
Pieter,
yes, the differences between people views depend a lot on where they are located. In Poland the differences came from from the partition times in XIX century and then from the war time. Since my uncle served in WW II he had a chance to meet real people in France, Germany, Hungary and he knew that there is a difference between the politics of the country and their countrymen.
People in Poznan's region were treated very badly by Germans at least they did not need to serve in Wehrmacht, but they were often resettled to main Poland. What is worse, hard to say?
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