General Discussion

I had a Dutch friend who passed several years ago. He was an "alumnus" of Auschwitz, still had the number tattooed on his arm. A soccer fanatic, he once traveled to Poland with the Dutch national soccer team, and made a side trip to Auschwitz, the first time back since the liberation. I asked him why in the world he would ever want to go back there. He said he wanted top stand before the gate and say out loud, "I'm still here, and you are not."

My father and my wife's father were both drafted into the armies of opposing sides. My dad had to graduate early from college to go to basic training, and his ship across the English Channel was torpedoed on the way to France. He saw next to no combat duty (that he ever told us of, anyway). My wife's father was drafted off his farm at age 17. He was sent to Stalingrad, where a Soviet artillery shell blew off part of one of his legs. What was left of him was recognized as "still alive," and he was brought back to field hospitals. Gangrene had set in, and they barely saved him, having to amputate most of what was left of his leg. At age 19, in 1943, he was returned to his farm, but useless as a farmer. He did his best to recover what had previously been described as his "sunny nature," though more than once, I saw him watching TV when a documentary of WWII came on, and his face grew cold, his jaw rippling with anger whenever an image of Hitler came on. He made no secret of his wish that if he had grandchildren, that they would all be girls, since West Germany had no compulsory military service for girls. Fate was to grant him that wish. We were very relieved when they met, before our wedding, and there was not even a hint of awkwardness or animosity. Of course, my wife's dad never blamed the Allies for anything, only the Nazis, so that helped.