Originally posted by Hawklore
Memories need to be shared, If it hapend, tell, We've had US WWII vets come up to us, call us damn red commie bastards and give us a handshake, and a Thank you for remembering..
And they've even thanked the reenactors who do Nazi officer impressions for preserving the evilness for those to see what it was like..
Then we got the regular german army reenactors, and we got a guy who grew up in bombed out germany, and he occasionaly goes nuts about it speaking in German and stuff..
Memories !....Sometimes it is hard to to remember, ones that are painful, you put away and try to forget, some are not as painful, and you wish that you could share them withsomeone else, except your wife.
Born 1930 in Lithuania, childhood memories are the happy ones. Then like 9/11, for a 10 year old, everything seemed to come to a halt.
Just like in every country, there are nice (good) people, and some are not. After loosing ( so I thought) my father to Siberia, I disliked russians, for taking my father away.
When WW2 started, it went right through our town, at first most of us were joyful, for again we all will be FREE !...Not in our lifetime !......!?
For the next 2.5 years, I guess, that I was to young, to know the things the natzi's did, in our small country.!
Then, one day they came to our house, and becouse as yougster I was big for my age, besides knowing and speaking german, they just took me away from my Mother!..I and approx. 200 other youngsters, ended in an U-boat base on the Baltic sea. We did everything, even as anti-aircraft gunners.
1945 the Russian army was only 50 miles away, when I was lucky togeather with some others, to get away and jump on a train towards Berlin and the west, becouse still I disliked the Russians.
April 1st, 1945, just few days till my birthday, I laid eys on a single American soldier walking on our street. Happy times started all over again!
DP (Displaced Persons) camps came next...I was again one of the lucky ones to work for American Army, when Berlin blockade was on. Got a chance to go twice.....but still no news from mother or father. Then one day out of the blue father showed-up in DP camp, It seems that the American red cross and my Aunts in Toledo, Ohio managed to find my dad, through the graces of some good Russian Officer, and then find me. As soon as we could, we informed my mother, for dad knew where she was in Poland.....By this time not knowing where my perents were. I imigrated to Canada. I was in Canada when news came that mother was taken at night over the boarder into American Zone..... It was 13.5 years since that day, when germans took me away from mother. Through the grace of God, both my parents came to USA, and setteled in Toledo, Ohio. It is there that we came together, and it is there when my father told me not to dislike the russians, for if not for some good ones , he would never have come back.
I joined AH, even thinking that at 75 I was way to old, but just think!..I could have not shared some memories,(even little) ones with any of you..
For this I will be gratfull !!:aok
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Good judgement comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad.
