Post by Maggie on Mar 4, 2014 20:29:20 GMT -6
Heartbreaking photo of a Russian soldier:
He took just seconds to try to rest in the forests of Finland (1939/1940) but that was all it took for him to freeze to death. Apparently there are many such bodies to be found.
Here is a bracing dose of reality. A German soldier finally comes home to Frankfurt from the war only to find nothing. His home is rubble.
Here is a woman crying on some ruins in 1945. Why? We don't know but it isn't hard to make guesses.
Then there is the bombing of Danzig. This picture shows us what fleeing from your home looks like:
If you click the picture you will notice that the woman in the foreground is elderly ... and alone. This strikes me as unbearably sad.
I spent a fair amount of time in East Berlin when I was a student in Germany. Because they were not a wealthy country, there were *still* bombed out buildings to be seen everywhere. Only the East Germans called them "War Memorials" preserved to show the horrors of war. Somehow that pitiful attempt to put a brave face on it was moving-- until you ran into some of the Russian soldiers occupying the city. I will never forget the emotions that went through me when I realized just what it meant to be occupied by a foreign army. WWII seemed like ancient history to me then. Looking back I realize that it had hardly been any time at all.
He took just seconds to try to rest in the forests of Finland (1939/1940) but that was all it took for him to freeze to death. Apparently there are many such bodies to be found.
Here is a bracing dose of reality. A German soldier finally comes home to Frankfurt from the war only to find nothing. His home is rubble.
Here is a woman crying on some ruins in 1945. Why? We don't know but it isn't hard to make guesses.
Then there is the bombing of Danzig. This picture shows us what fleeing from your home looks like:
If you click the picture you will notice that the woman in the foreground is elderly ... and alone. This strikes me as unbearably sad.
I spent a fair amount of time in East Berlin when I was a student in Germany. Because they were not a wealthy country, there were *still* bombed out buildings to be seen everywhere. Only the East Germans called them "War Memorials" preserved to show the horrors of war. Somehow that pitiful attempt to put a brave face on it was moving-- until you ran into some of the Russian soldiers occupying the city. I will never forget the emotions that went through me when I realized just what it meant to be occupied by a foreign army. WWII seemed like ancient history to me then. Looking back I realize that it had hardly been any time at all.