Liking to see the slaughter of the Russian army is exactly how that comes across once you take out the qualifier of not wanting to see Ukrainians hurt.
IP,
What side of the bed to get out of this morning?
You are putting words in my mouth. You are asking me to be exact in quoting you, but then muddling every bit of how you understand my words.
I never said I would “like” the slaughter of the Russian army. Get over it. You are wrong.
As for the qualifier it is there on purpose. You are telling me words matter but not reading them properly.
I have never been back to Hungary. One of my cousins who escaped in 1956 did visit with his whole family. I asked him why he did it. “To be at peace with my demons” whatever that means. He and his older sister had disappeared for several days during the revolution and the family was worried. “Where have you been?” “Collecting corpses.”
So, while there seems to be many cases where an individual kindness in war it can be the governments policy to the contrary both during and after conflict.
That is the whole point of my anecdote! Group identity is a terrible thing. It leads to terrible acts like the Holocaust and the Ruanda massacres. Each individual should be valued on his individual merits or lack thereof. The whole idea of the original sin and its derivatives is preposterous! It’s evil!
I’m a holocaust surviver and I have a hard time hating German soldiers. It just so happens that my father was a German soldier, a sergeant, in WWI with a higher rank that Hitler and the recipient of the Iron Cross. Is he to blame for WWI or just a victim of circumstance?
I did often wonder how the most civilized nation on Earth, Brahms, Bach, and Beethoven, could fall to the depth of NAZISM. Then I experienced the Chavez revolution in Venezuela. Civilization is but a thin veneer. Combine poor economic conditions with a silver tongued charismatic leader and you can get to the depths of hell.
If you Americans feel very virtuous, how do you justify the extermination of buffalos to exterminate native Americans?
Never forget the mote and the beam parable!
P.S. Anyone that goes to Budapest must visit the “Shoes” Memorial.
My grandfather was the sole survivor of his family after the Armenian Genocide. No one else left, mother, father, brother, sister. grandmothers, grandfathers, aunts, uncles, cousins all gone and the village burnt to the ground.
My grandfather was out in the countryside running an errand when the Turkish soldiers came. A Jewish family hid him in their root cellar until the soldiers were gone and then helped him escape northward.
Individual kindness in the middle of Government sanctioned murder.
OTFoolish
P.S. The Turkish government still doesn’t take responsibility.
Individual kindness in the middle of Government sanctioned murder.
I’m sure lots of people have similar stories. After Schindler’s List I was approached to tell my story. I refused because I don’t wan’t to promote victimhood. I don’t feel like a victim. I feel like one very lucky survivor.
P.S. The Turkish government still doesn’t take responsibility.
To its credit, the German Government has taken steps to compensate the victims of the Holocaust. My mother received a life long pension in compensation. I don’t know if I could have gotten one but I didn’t want it. Come 2004 and the failed revolt against Hugo Chavez I started to think about leaving Venezuela. I decided to apply to reinstate my German citizenship (born in Berlin) as a German passport would give me access to most of Europe and some Caribbean Islands. The rules were strict, being born in Germany was not enough, you had to have German roots. My father’s military passbook took care of that! I was told that Germany had passed another law that could give me citizenship, Jews who left Germany lost their citizenship under NAZI rule. This new law reinstated these citizenships. In any case, they were very helpful and a few months later I had my passport that allows me to live in Portugal.
I did often wonder how the most civilized nation on Earth, Brahms, Bach, and Beethoven, could fall to the depth of NAZISM.
Denny,
You wont read this more than likely. You are in the lets keep this all simplistic crowd.
There have been many reasons given on this board for taking care of American society in the here and now. You have shot down many of those reasons as a socialism or communism like in Cuba or Venezuela.
That response to hard working people and their poverty is what led to Nazism, Chavez and Castro. Yes America as an outside power has often played a guilty role. Yes America has its own history. Yet when WW II was over we MOSTLY supported an end to colonialism and a new age. The judgement of the leaders voted on by the people was often faulty in the face of a cold war.
It is when we look at climate change and growing the US economy with government help, or look to seeing that working women can survive, prosper and raise well educated children etc…and your say it is wrong to spend tax dollars on any of this that we have terrible outcomes. It has always been wrong and simplistic.
The rise of the Nazis was a matter of abstract power shifting. The simplistic wishes just be well off for ones lonesome fully aided the rise of Hitler.
I did often wonder how the most civilized nation on Earth, Brahms, Bach, and Beethoven, could fall to the depth of NAZISM.
That reminds me of a line from the “Holocaust” miniseries that I’ve never been able to forget: (The mother-Weiss family:) But how could you want to leave this country? Germany is the country of Beethoven and Bach and Brahms! (The father-Weiss family:) Yes, but unfortunately none of them are in office at the moment.
Non-spoiler note: They would have been better off had they emigrated.
The rules were strict, being born in Germany was not enough, you had to have German roots. My father’s military passbook took care of that! I was told that Germany had passed another law that could give me citizenship, Jews who left Germany lost their citizenship under NAZI rule. This new law reinstated these citizenships. In any case, they were very helpful and a few months later I had my passport that allows me to live in Portugal.
The Captain
Living in Germany (NATO AWACs base Geilenkirchen) after the wall came down and the great fear was that the very large number of Germans who had moved long ago to Russia to help build Peter the Greats empire would all take advantage of their roots to move back to Germany. A new small (6 unit) apartment building across the street filled with families from Russia. My neighbour (and German teacher) was ranting away about Ausländer moving in to the neighbourhood …! I smiled and reminded her that I was an Ausländer to which she replied that I was a good Ausländer. }};-D
Later during a trip to down south I dropped in to where the Canadian bases around Lahr and Baden had been before they were quickly abandoned when the Canadians packed up and headed home when peace broke out. There is a Canadian tradition to get the heck out before someone comes up with a new idea to use left over military forces. The worst fears of many of the Germans materialized as the housing was packed with Russians and only a small plaque in the square remembering their long term Canadian neighbours.
No matter what your ethnic roots are wouldn’t you want to leave Russia given the chance? OTFoolish
Not necessarily. Most people would not want to leave their native country and their family, especially if they have a decent job there. Not over politics, anyway. Now the weather in Russia, that could be a different story, for me.
The rules were strict, being born in Germany was not enough, you had to have German roots.
Which is why I retain records of both of my parent’s birth in the US, for the next wave of hyper-nationalism here in Shinyland. A previous POTUS did speculate about denying birthright citizenship to anyone who could not prove they had family roots here.
I smiled and reminded her that I was an Ausländer to which she replied that I was a good Ausländer. }};-D
Over forty years ago, I was talking with someone who worked in the company’s Houston branch. He offered that the difference between a Yankee and a (darn) Yankee, in Texas, was that a Yankee went home, but a (darn) Yankee stayed. Your neighbor was probably confident that you would go back to Canada, eventually. :^)
Your neighbor was probably confident that you would go back to Canada, eventually. :^)
Steve
I would have loved to stay another seven years to qualify for the generous 34% tax free NATO pension but my Nova Scotian wife wanted to go home. The payout for leaving one day before the 10 year lock in bought us our new home in Halifax along with a whole bunch left over. As a non-resident of Canada for ten years our feds withheld a small “treaty rate” on my military pension while a resident of Germany and I didn’t even need to file with CRA.
Oh, in Germany you don’t pay taxes on Capital gains made in the stock market! }};-D
I’m sure lots of people have similar stories. After Schindler’s List I was approached to tell my story. I refused because I don’t wan’t to promote victimhood. I don’t feel like a victim. I feel like one very lucky survivor.
Maybe tell them THIS, you wouldn’t be the only one. A surprising number of the interviews come off this way.