Quote:
Originally Posted by Itse
On the other hand, we're not the ones getting shot at, bombed and seeing our friends relatives and countrymen die every day.
It's a lot easier for us to say that "you know it'd be smarter to just give in to the Russians".
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This is so true. My in-laws and my passed husband were from Hungary and they came to Canada in 1949. They were able to come to Canada only because my father-in-law had 2 brothers who immigrated to Canada 20 years earlier, when Canada was encouraging immigrants with farming background to move here.
My in-laws, particularly my father-in-law, rarely talked about the war. Hitler marched through their country as well and occupied all of their towns. The men, including my father-in-law, were forced to fight for the Germans. He was in a unit that marched 4500 km to Moscow and back in the dead of winter. He said they all would have starved if not for some peasants giving them bread. 90% of his unit was lost in battle.
The village they were from was occupied by the Germans for about 2 months, until all supplies were exhausted, and then they went to another village. My mother-in-law and her sister were hidden in a vegetable pit for that period of time or else they would have been raped.
My father-in-law's words were almost identical to yours. He said that until your home has been blown to smithereens, until you have been occupied, until you have lost your children or other members of your family, until your women have been raped, and until you have been forced to fight someone else's war, you have no concept of what war is really like.
I recently reminded my children to be careful of causes they support and to remember the sacrifices their grandparents made to come to Canada to give them a better life, a life free from oppression.