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"I Was On the Other End"


cutiger83
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This past weekend I was speaking to a group of elderly people from a nursing home. One of the men served with the 8th Air Force in WWII. One woman spoke about her father who was shot down in a B-17 and was a POW for 18 months. She said her father died young which she thinks was from the malnutrition as a POW.

 

We were still talking when this soft voice from a 90 year old woman said "I was on the other end". She was born in Nuremberg in 1928. She spoke about being one of the Hitler youth. She said it was like being in the boy scouts or girl scouts. They enticed young children by offering them so much. She said what child doesn't want to go swimming and play. We asked her what she remembers most about the war. She said always running to the basement. She said hearing planes still makes her shake even 80 years later. It was fascinating talking to her.

 

We need to listen to all sides in history. The civilian population and especially the children suffer the most in war. There is no glory in war.

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Good for that 90 year old to speak up...

A co workers father was a flak gunner in Germany ...he grew up fascinated by the B17..odd

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It good to hear both sides.

Book is a great read.e875d7c9361316de0187ba3ab3450a44.jpg

 

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk

I'll second that one. Great read and incredible story!

 

 

I am always interested in hearing stories from the other side.

 

Andrew

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I worked with a great German woman in Goeppingen in the mid-80s. She had been a young girl during the war. She told me once that her clearest memory of that time was of the beautiful silver airplanes flying overhead, so many of them, with contrails behing them all. “But”, she said, “We knew why they were coming.”

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I have a very close Czech friend my age, who was a small boy in his former nation during the war. His father was conscripted as a guide for Hitlerjugend.

Eventually, after the USSR took over, my friend was given a choice between tractor mechanic or national ballet. He chose the latter, and claimed asylum in Canada during one of their international tours. There he and his Polish wife have prospered in peace.

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I lived on a Kibbutz in Israel in 1979-80, and we ate our meals in a common dinning room. One day as we came in for lunch after working with the cows, a women was eating and looking down and all she saw was our black high rubber boots. She had a flashback and went hysterical, thinking we were Nazi's with black boots, she had the concentration tattoo on her arm. We would not were our boots in there again after that.

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Thanks everyone for sharing your stories. I think people tend to forget the children having PTSD just as the soldiers. The trauma those little eyes must have seen was unbearable.

 

I have also read the book "Higher Call". I highly recommend the book as well.

 

Kat

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  • 4 months later...

Just finished this amazing story. I met the author of the book 'A Higher Call' at the American Heritage Museum in Stowe Mass in December.

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