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Originally Posted by asianthree
Every once in a while at VA facilities, we have the honor to visit and listen to the WW veterans. Always humble and never think they were a hero, just lucky to survive. One tells how he lied about his age to enlist, was so proud he did. You need patience, when you visit, but their faces light up if you get that privilege. Family is few and far between.
Korean, vets are becoming more common place, with some interactions.
Not sure if there will be any Nam guys will survive to their 90s, but not sure if some will talk even late in life.
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Fascinating, to hear the stories of those folk who were actually there.
Back in my pre-bubble days, one of my clients was an American bomber crewman whose aircraft was shot down late in the war and captured. Most American POWs were sent to special POW camps, but he, being Jewish, was instead sent to a concentration camp--I cannot recall which one. He managed to survive until liberation though he was apparently in pretty rough shape. What was fascinating was his account of the camp's liberation--by Russian women soldiers. His account was brief and succinct: "they came in, hanged the guards, and let us go".
Another time I was lucky enough to hear a keynote speech at at an annual gathering, given by a British woman who was also held in Germany during WW II, I believe on suspicion of espionage. It was fascinating on many levels but especially so because her account of day-to-day life in the camp. Her treatment, though rough, was better than that of a lot of the inmates and they did have some time apparently for hijinks. She told of a time when she and some of her fellow inmates got their hands on some chocolate-covered laxatives and somehow managed to get it into a dessert being prepared for the guards that day. The effect was as predicted, though the guard were not amused and she and her fellow conspirators did end up paying a price for their particular practical joke.
What was particularly interesting was her assessment of her captors. According to her the average German soldier was an honorable person, but her assessment of the SS was totally different. "They were thugs--animals!" One interrogation "technique" apparently used by the SS, in order to affect a confession, was to pull one tooth per hour out of the person being interrogated until they either confessed, or ran out of teeth.
It is sad that so many of these first-person accounts have already been lost, with most of the rest on the verge. We as a society have no lack of sweeping panoramic spectacles of WW II, but they are largely impersonal. It is the first person accounts that tell the tale on a far deeper level.