What did our ancestors do during WWII?

Originally posted by Genghis   Have you ever written down what he told you?  Or perhaps gotten a tape recorder and taped him?  That would be a valuable piece of historical information for Albania and all the world.

he looks better in Polish uniform :)

Originally posted by ataman he looks better in Polish uniform :)

My grandfather was a wwI vet, my dad was in the Coast Guard, assigned to the Amphibious landing Forces in the Pacific.  His ship was involved in the landings at both Iwo Jima and Okinawa.

Edited by xristar - 21-Jul-2006 at 14:40

Originally posted by Mosquito well, he didnt have any choice, in fact he was in situation that he could not refuse... and almost lost his life on the eastern front In his company was about 30 Poles but only my grandfather was called by the Germans "verfluchte Pole"

Originally posted by xristar A few kilomatres to the west the Germans were executing children in Serbian schools, as retaliation for guerilla attacks.

I know. In Bulgaria also were located many kommunistic guerilla groups, but not in the region, where my Grand-parents were living.

None of my grandfathers waged war. But my paternal great grandfather was taken into the Soviet army after the 1940 occupation. He was given a birch stick(i've told this story before) and was sent out as a scout, but the first sight of the Wehrmacht made him drop his stick and surrender to the rifled Germans. He spent most of the time during the war in a prison camp i think.

His brother emigrated to Canada and worked as a miner for 32 years there. He died just this April. I never spoke a word with him.

And my grandmother speaks well of the Germans too. They never took anything, they traded goods and threw in some smiles for the kids.

My grandmothers brother disappeared in the war. He was in  the German army. Maybe perished in the Czech hell, maybe went insane and forgot who he was. My father still reads all the credits after movies end, he thinks he will find his name as he thinks that he might have fled Estonia to the US or Canada and i now working somewhere (in the motion picure business for some reason) without the knowledge of our existence. Makes you wonder who is sane, the guy who fought in WW2 or the one sitting behind a TV looking for his uncles name.

My grandmother once told me that during the war she could smell burning flesh coming from the seaside. She was on the road to town, the same road i take every day myself. The Germans burnt Jews there by the sea and there is a Jewish memorial there, to my own surprise. There's really a kinda gag reflex in the stomach to it when you hear such activities happened just some 3 or 4 miles from your house.


Edited by Kalevipoeg - 23-Jul-2006 at 07:59

My American grand-father had a heavy construction company and spent the war helping build naval facilities throughout the Puget sound region.

My Canadian grandfather was in his forties when WW II started and a veteran of WW I. He re-enlisted in 1940 and spent the war training soldiers in Vernon B.C.

Both my grandfathers fought at the Greek albanian frontier againts the Italian and albanian invanders.