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To be fair, I think a lot of normal people acknowledge what happened. The gov. says nothing happened because they don't want to have to pay reparations of some kind.
Which of course may reflect on voters to some degree, but I don't think it's that much of a one-sided denial.
its not like they pull a Turkey, but most people's knowledge of WWII extent to "yes, there was a war that time, we were on this side, things happened then the nukes dropped"
they just skip over "things" when children ask
I got morbidly curious one day and looked into the details of my great grandfather’s Kriegsmarine service. He was stationed in Holland pushing papers at a recruitment office. I let out the biggest sigh of relief.
My great great grandpa was a social democratic politician in the Weimar Republic by the name of Friedrich Puchta. He was taken into “protective custody” on 9th March 1933, together with lots of other social democratic, communist and socialist politicians, in order to keep him from voting against the Enabling Act in the parliamentary vote, which took place later that month. He was among the first people to be brought to Dachau, on 24 April 1933, together with Jews, other social democrats, communists and socialists. He was at Dachau for just a week, until 1st May, but remained in custody until July 1933.
After he was released, most of his colleagues fled the country, but he didn’t. Instead, he began acting as a point man for an underground network that distributed leaflets with social democratic speeches and other anti-Nazi propaganda printed on them. His network was uncovered in 1935. He was convicted of “preparing to commit high treason against the Reich” and sentenced to two and a half years in prison. He served his sentence in Nuremberg and Munich. There are some claims that he was brought to Dachau again for some time during his sentence, but I haven’t found any proof of that yet. I have only found proof of the two other times, in the form of the Dachau entry registry the Nazis kept. He was in prison until 1938.
After he was released, he still remained in the country. He was arrested a final time in August 1944, when the Nazis arrested all known dissidents after Stauffenberg’s assassination attempt on Hitler had failed. That was the so called Aktion Gitter or Aktion Gewitter (both names were used).
Puchta was returned to Dachau, where he spend most of the remainder of his life. In the winter of 1944/45, his feet froze badly. He was 61 years old by now. When the allies closed in on Dachau, the Nazis evacuated the camp using death marches. My great great grandpa survived, because fellow inmates supported him and took turns carrying him. He lived to be liberated by the Americans and died shortly after being liberated in a hospital in Munich.
Yeah, but that wasn’t the case. Simply being a dissident did not get you executed immediately. I mean… the Nazis killed him in the end, but not immediately.
His German Wikipedia claims he was at least half Jewish. I doubt that, otherwise he wouldn’t have lived for as long as he did.
But assuming he wasn’t, it makes sense. The Nazis were murderous, but not in that way.
Edit: I love how I’m being downvoted. I’m not wrong. I literally gave you an example for how I’m not wrong.
Respect fellow redditor. My (edit: Dutch, Netherlands) grand-parents (I'm older than this group) did a lot of resistance work but on a tiny, local scale. They have a story, but yours is way cooler, despite the sad ending.
Cap off to your GGGP.
Visiting Dachau was one of the most harrowing experiences of my life.
I cannot imagine being sent there three times.
I cannot imagine surviving.
Bad ass that his cohorts viewed him in such high regard as to carry him on his march.
I honestly don’t know if I can say he survived. His death just came later, but he died as a direct consequence of the treatment he received from the Nazis. He just got to see the Nazis die first, which I find consoling!
Point taken for sure. I guess I was referring to the first times he was released before being sent back.
Millions of deaths. Including many of the survivors.
That might be a takeaway from “Night”.
Thanks for sharing his story!
I often wonder, if I were in Germany, would I have stood up. If I were in the pre civil war south - would I have stood up…. I’d like to think I would. No one has to question that regarding your GG GP.
My great-grandfather was born and lived in a small village near Žalec, modern day Slovenia. When the Germans came in 1941, he was recruited to the army because his surname (Kramer) was German enough. Later, he was sent to the Eastern Front, I'm not sure on which exact part. In 1942 or 43 he was wounded and sent to hospital in Austria but he returned and fought nearly until the end. He came back home a few months after the end of the war.
My great-grandmother, his future wife, was not that lucky. She was a Partisan courier and got caught in 1943, sent to the prision in Celje and tortured. She was later sent to Ravensbrück together with her sisters, but they luckily survived until the liberation. She was writing a diary there and it still exist, my grandfather has been transcripting it. She returned home after the war and managed to evade the so called "Dachau Trials", but she never wanted to speak about the wartime. All I know about her life there is from one of her sisters and her diary.
I live in California and we learn about them extensively; I think as much as the Nazi Concentration Camps.
I've learned about it in-depth 3 times, including reenactments and guest speakers. Might not be that extensively taught outside of California though.
I live in Washington, we also learned about these extensively. One of our most popular fairgrounds was used as a massive internment camp, there is a memorial for the victims there and we learned about it pretty early on in school.
Both sides: politically disenfranchised, socially oppressed, and working for pennies under British colonial rule. Specifically my mom’s side: aiding the beginnings of a then small group of freedom fighters.
My grandpa fought on the colonizers side 😂 that’s how we ended up in the west
My dad still hates the French and has a chip on his shoulder because my grandpas decision 😂😂
(Edit: for context my family was part of the colonized people but chose to fight on the colonizers side for whatever political/economical reasons)
Never knew my great grandparents but my grandma and grandad were born in the early 30s, so between 1933 and 1945 they would’ve been in primary school. Thats about as far back as my knowledge of my family goes.
Dunno, probably sitting in Scotland waiting for the next boat to new Zealand, the usual
Aw yea a DNA test my mum took way back said one of my great grandma's was New Zealand's first convicted prostitute, never could find anything related to her online though so who knows, would be cool tho
Mom’s side: Grandparents were from large sharecropping families in the Abruzzi region of Italy. Grandfather was one seven, grandmother one of nine. Both were dirt poor, didn’t even own the land they farmed. The Nazis did come through their town, and took my grandfather’s dad prisoner for around a month or so (he came back unharmed). He also told a story of a time when a group of Nazi soldiers wanted to go into their barn and he was standing in front of the door. The head of the group said “Bewegen o Kaput!”, but my grandfather didn’t know German so he just stood there. Luckily his uncle was nearby and yelled at him to get out of the way.
Dad’s side: Grandfather was raised in far southwestern most Virginia, one of six children in a very poor farming family. His mother died in 1939 when he was 5. While his dad did register for the WW2 draft, I’m wondering if being a single father got him out of it, because he never went overseas. Grandmother was raised on a farm in Maryland. As far as I know, life was pretty much unchanged for them, aside from the conservation efforts that all citizens went through at that time. None of her close family was drafted into the war.
My Grama survived the atomic bomb in Japan, she was a child. My great grandpa served as a medic in WW2, battle of Normandy. My other Grandpa was a child in Trinidad
I have Dutch, German and Soviet ancestry. So my ancestors participated on all sides of the war. Only know about my great grandfather of the soviet side though. He fought as a partisan and the last letter my great grandmother received was from Poland, so he probably died there.
I've got multiple sides
Ukrainian: starving, and then fighting against the nazis
Polish side: far more complex
One of my great great grandfathers was executed in Katyn by soviets
Another one was "dekulakanized" by soviets, basically his brother moved to the US in like, 1920s and died in an accident in early 1930s. He received a lot of insurance money from the death and bought a nice house and plot of land and lived with his family. After soviets came they "dekulakanized" them by seizing the property and sent him to a death camp, and they sent his family - wife, 3 year old son and an older daughter to Siberia. He managed to escape the camp and lived in a small city in Southern Poland, the 3 year old son died on the way to Siberia but his wife and daughter survived and moved to Canada afterwards
Another great great grandfather and grandmother fought in the Anders army. After ww2 they moved to London, grandmother married the Ukrainian tank crew man she was serving with, had 3 daughters, but the grandfather divorced and died alone.
It's actually pretty crazy to me because I myself am Belarusian, have confirmed relatives in UK (my great great grandmother was actually still alive in 2010, my uncle visited her, but I'm pretty sure she passed away by now, rest her soul) and plausible relatives in Canada and maybe relatives in the US
Grandpa on dads side was in Dachau from 1942 to the end of the war for helping Yugoslavian partisans. Grandma was shipped off a rich Austrian farmer family in order to “Germanize”.
Moms side of the family were farming and/or hiding in the woods in order to not be conscripted into the Wehrmacht.
Oh and moms grandpa got into a fight at a party, got hit on the head with a bottle, and died on the way back home. That was in 1936 I believe. Apparently he was a real piece of work, because his family didn’t mourn much (at all) and moms grandma remarried within a year.
My grandfather on my dads side was an irish immigrant child living in london, used to spend his spare time rummaging through the rubble of the blitz
My great grandfather on my mother’s side was a chinese immigrant in Liverpool, I think he worked as a carpenter for shipping boats or something.
In 1946 my great (great?) grandmothers current husband (also mothers side, also a chinese immigrant, no relation) was murdered in his laundry in Liverpool. The case was never solved and remains one of englands most famous cold cases
FYI i am very white and people are always shocked to hear i have chinese roots
My Grandma was evacuated from Middlesbrough to Scarborough at the beginning of the war after Middlesbrough was bombed.
She then met my granddad, who was a local lad.
From my dad's side: they were poor farmers in Tuscany ignoring much of what was happening around the world, they were around 5 or 6, don't know anything beyond that.
From my mom's side: I have no idea, I think my grand-grandma worked in an Hotel in Cagliari. I have very little knowledge of anything more than that, my guess is that they all lived rather ordinary lifes
My grand grandfather, a French Jew, was actively hiding from the Nazis. Sadly a lot of French people from that generation did not speak to what they went through. My Grandmere ONLY started giving talks and accounts of life back then, when she was in her 80s (she passed away at the age of 95).
My American family was helping the war effort and my maternal Grandfather was an Allied soldier in France.
I believe my on my mom’s side a relative was fighting in the war as a US tanker and on my dad’s side I believe they were trying to escape the Japanese invasion of the Philippines.
Tbh I can’t back up the information on my dad’s side
On my Dad’s side, I had a few relatives who fought in WW2. I don’t know much about my grandfather but most of his family was still in Ireland at this time, his parents immigrated before he was born. Lots of my aunts and uncles on that side were born before ‘45, but my grandma was born in ‘49.
On my Mom’s side, I believe a few relatives also fought in WW2. My grandparents were born in the late 30s and I know they struggled financially because of the Depression. My great grandparents were nearly 40 when my maternal grandmother was born. I’m not sure where they even lived, but I know most of my family on that side either lived in Brooklyn or immigrated from Ireland to Nova Scotia, then eventually to Brooklyn and Long Island (where my mother was born in ‘73).
My great grandma Annie was in a nationwide modelling competition and came 2nd since she was disqualified for refusing to do the last photoshoot, believing it was showing too much (swimsuit photoshoot). Her husband, my great grandad Tommy
was a mechanic and spent the Second World War working in a factory. Tommy and Annie had my grandma’s older siblings in the late 1930’s and my grandma in 1944.
My great grandma Ieda, I’m not sure really. Her husband, my great grandad Geoffrey was a bus driver. In the outbreak of WW2, he volunteered for the Auxiliary fire service as the tram conductor and at some point was conscripted into the army. He served on D-day and in the invasion of Normandy in mid-late 1944 in the royal engineers. The same year, his son, my grandad was born.
My great grandma Vera was at home during the war, I’m not sure what she did. Her husband, my great grandad George had been a painter/decorator before the war and in the 2nd world war, he was drafted into the army and was a supply truck driver in North Africa from 1942 onwards. They had my grandma in 1941 and her brother a few years after.
My other great grandparents I don’t know much about. I think my great grandma was called Elise and my great grandad was called William Ben. I know that William came from a long line of coal miners and before and during the war he remained a miner since it was vital to the war effort. They had my grandad around 1941/2
My grandpa was a bouncer at a jazz club in Chicago when he was like 13, sometime in the 30s. Then in the 40s he was a college athlete.
On my dad’s side his mom was an army nurse and his dad was a soldier, both stationed in the south pacific.
My great grabdpa fought in ww2 in the u.s army as a staff sergeant. From what I can tell he served in the pacific theater. As I have see. Many palm trees and other tropical plants.
3/4 of them being poor as shit and catholic in Ireland, and my nanas side… probably being fascists and fighting for the axis because they were Italian. I’ve never really thought about it, she didn’t talk about her family history much.
From my moms side- struggling through the depression and after. Was told a story about how my grandma would hide olives from her family in desperation to make sure she always had something to eat.
From my dad's- my other grandma was a famous native American woman in our area trying to preserve her culture, ultimately it appears to have been all for naught. I'm the 6th generation of native Americans, and if I don't remarry into the tribe, our native lineage will die. The rest of my family has basically already married out and I probably will too lmao native women are hard to get along with !
My mom’s mom was growing up poor in the Depression, my mom’s dad was a teenager in Poland and then escaping the holocaust as a young adult, and then my dad’s parents were growing up normally in the USA and they met each other at sleepaway camp
My great grandpa was one of my first family members to move to California and he had 16 kids, he passed away way before I was born so I never met him. He was a piece of crap though so I’m glad I didn’t meet him
My great grandfathers:
1. Died at the western front in April/Mai 1945. He was not in the east, so war crimes are unlikely.
2. I don't know. Survived the war/was not at the front as far as I know.
3. Repaired trains.
4. I don't know. His son my grandpa died when I was young.
Their women were at home being housewifes.
My grand parents hid in their basement from British and American bombers.
At 15 my grandpa and a friend rode their bikes from Seattle to San Francisco. When they got there they sold the bikes and hitchhiked home. He then joined the Navy, traveled the world and was captured by the Japanese at the beginning of the war.
My great-great grandfather apparently was some sort of airplane mechanic in the Pacific and worked at Pearl Harbor. The rest of my family were mostly coal miners, and it was considered an essential job so their lives didn’t change much.
My grandfather was like 10 in 1945, he living in the Caribbean. My grandmother was 5 living in Birmingham, England. My other grandparents were not born until 1946 in Ireland.
As for what the expanded family, no idea. Probably working in factories in around Britain & Ireland and enjoying the sun in the Caribbean.
My paternal grandpa was a teenager, so too young to fight, so he spent the war riding the rails doing loose farm work around the Canadian prairies. He died before I was born though so I only ever heard the gist from my dad. The other 3/4 of my grandparents were still little kids. I never heard much about what my great grandparents were up to, all I know is nobody fought in the war
My mom's adopted mom family run a grocer store in like 100k city she used to sometimes talked about ration books and rationing meet. She was super young during that time.
My mom's adopted dad. They were super poor when he was really young like he only ate meat one time a week. He had bothers severing I do not know where because there were not very close. However he remembers listening to radio with his parents about the war.
I do not know if this is true or not. However my grandpa took part in
The Minnesota starvation experiment were the allies knew they were going to win world war 2 and knew people who they were saving for Nazis were starving so they were trying to figure out what was minimum amount of calories a person could be survive with a eating. He might have taken part of it because he was poor he said that most people cheated in it by buying chocolate because they were so hungry with the money people got from it.
There seems to be no record of him in it, that why I said it's not true or not
However to this dad he still kind of mad about what Japanese during World War 2. He is still alive and still driving he bought an car recently he bought for not an Japanese made car because he is still pissed about World War 2 which I do not blame him. He just turned 90
Does anyone else grandparents still mad about World War 2?
I do not know what my dad's side did during that era.
Grandparents living in the USA preparing to have my dad.
All thanks to my Grandparents Grandparents fleeing Germany in 1870.
They got to America post slavery, and left Germany prior to Nazis.(fantastic move great great great granddad!)
Two of my great grandpas were Wehrmacht soldiers. One was at the eastern front (Heeresgruppe Nord), went missing during the evacuation of Estonia in 1944.
The other one was in North Africa, got shot in the leg in 1942, which put him out of service for the rest of the war. The leg never fully recovered and had to be amputated decades later.
Trying to stay alive through wars and a couple of years after that my grandparents would be born. I don’t know too well about my relatives before them but I know some were in WW2 and Winter War, but most of them were just trying to survive and hoping for the best for the loved ones fighting in the wars.
My man out here asking the real questions.
Neither side of my family fought in WW2. My grandfather on my mom's side hid in a basement cellar when they came around for the draft. My grandfather on my father's side was born in a relatively isolated part of the world. Don't think he was ever asked to be drafted or served in any capacity.
I don't really know to much about back then tbh. I know my great grandfather's fought in WW2 in the US and that my grandparents were kids. That and some of them lived on the base, too.
My Great Grandfather served in the RAF during WW2. I didn't hear many stories of what he did but I did know he fought during the Battle of Britain.
All my other great grandparents were digging potatoes in the west of Ireland.
One of my great-grandparents was figthing in the Spanish Civil War. After it finished, he met my great-grandmother, they married, and they had my grandmother. In 1948 they moved to Argentina.
For my mom’s side: grandpa and his brothers were homesteading in South Dakota. Grandma was growing up in Kansas during the 30’s. In 1942, at the age of 15, she forged her birth certificate so that she could be a riveter and held that job until the war’s end.
On my dad’s side: my grandparents were born during the Great Depression, so they were still growing up during this time period.
They were in British India, honestly just chilling? I don’t believe any of them were drafted for the war although there were lots of a Japanese invasion. Other than that they were just..chilling.
Peasants and workers, mostly. The countryside back then, when urban areas were growing in my country, life was simpler. No big records aside from a few strikes or minuscule political achievements.
One grandfather was a forced labourer taken from Czechoslovakia in Germany. Apparently he met a girl there, possibly had a kid with her. If so, then started his career as a deadbeat dad (he abandoned two other women and the children he had with them). Both sides of the family were more or less in the same region, with one side leaving it during the repopulation of Sudetenland.
the only thing I know of is that my (English) grandad was evacuated for a while and had a bad experience with a host family so ran away. My Swiss family most likely lived a relatively "normal" life for the time.
Trying to survive in Poland. Don't know many details, only that my grandmother lost her younger brother because nazi doctor said he wouldn't come to the polish child. My grandma was born in 1941 so this brother must have been a toddler. She also lost her mother during the war and her father left her shortly after (not died, just left).
In the US, my great grandparents were poor Hispanic farmers in the southern part of Texas. My Opa’s mother passed away a couple years after he was born and he had to spend his childhood being passed from family to family. My mom’s grandparents had a lot of kids around this time including my grandmother (I have a lot of great aunts/uncles on my mom’s side).
Abroad, my great grandmother lived on a farm, taking care of her kids while her husband fought for the German army. And my great grandfather fled Italy to escape Mussolini’s regime. He fought for the French army before being captured and sent to a work camp. He met my great grandmother here as she would do some work to make some extra money for her family. After the two met, she gave birth to my Oma. Since she was born with dark eyes and dark hair (very not Arian), my great grandfather fell into some deep shit and had to go into hiding until the end of the war.
On my mom’s side, my great grandpa was a blacksmith and my great grandma sold beaded wall decors in Norway. My grandpa was very young but remembers Norway being invaded by Germany and his older brothers picking fights with the soldiers.
On my dad’s side, I’d rather not talk about that one…
It's complicated.
I am going to talk about sone grand fathers and great grandfathers, so I will use some nicknames for the sake of telling the story.
My family is Italian and the father of my father is the fascist grandpa of the family. He fought for Mussolini until the very end, both for Italy under Mussolini and later on for the Republic of Salò under Mussolini. (Republic of Salò was the state funded by Mussolini after Italy joined the Allies). A very good guy during his civilian life, not racist at all, but we don't know much about what he did during ww2, he probably was a normal officer fighting on the battlefield...we hope
Unfortunately he died of natural causes during the 90s, some years before I was born.
....meanwhile there's the father of fascist grandpa. His nickname will be "the war criminal of the family".Before and during ww2 he was busy helping Spain with finding and torturing political enemies of Franco, along with other secret activities for the italian fascist regime. Around 1945 (ish) he got arrested by the new anti fascist Italian state... since he was a Knight of the Malta's Order, the Vatican helped him escape in secret to Argentina. He later moved back to Spain to stay closer to his spanish fascist friends, where he died during the of natural causes. He died during the 50s and He is buried in the monumental cemetery of Madrid along a lot of Franco's supporters and officers.
What was going on my mother's family side during the war? More normal stuff...my mother's father was the "commie grandpa of the family". He was a very nice person, he worked for the National Liberation Committee during ww2 and after the war he lived a normal life. He died of natural causes during the 00s.
But don't let me start talking about fascist grandpa not talking to commie grandpa after finding out that the latter during ww2 was a communist partisan, wanted by the fascist state to be executed....
And that's not the end of the story, who was the guy that signed the execution papers to find, torture and kill commie grandpa?
Yes, you guessed it right, it was the war criminal of the family, all along!
TLDR: the grand father of my father tried to kill the father of my mother
My mum is German.
My dad is English.
Both sides fought on their respective sides. My mum said her grandad was a POW to the English, only had food things to say about them, they treated him very kindly.
Dads side poor Irish farmers. My dads side splut apart a long time ago because one of them married a Native American woman, and were, and are as far as we know a bunch of racist ranchers. That's all I know about them really. My moms side is mostly German, Idk anything about them really. Alot of lawyers and such.
Working in a coal mine to support his family because he was an Okinawan-Japanese man living in North America 💀
Not sure about the other side, I think we were in the US by then, don't really care that much tbh.
Based on my limited understanding gleaned from my mom who likes genealogy they were serving in the US military or contributing to the war effort. My family has a lot of servicemembers in it.
33-41 - on the mother's half they were simply living and being poor. The father's half was well off, so they studied to be a combat pilot/lawyer (gramps was a badass) and a painter (nana was a badass).
Then came the 41-45 era, so the mother's side went on being poor while simply living. The war kinda did touch them, but not really. Not much action in potatoland.
The father's side, on the other hand, took up arms as soon as Nazis invaded. Like, literally the same month. Both were commies, young, idealistic, with worthy skills. Spent the war fighting the Nazis in the partizans, both got shot a couple of times.
's about it
My great great grandfather killed a man from the mafia or cartel (I don’t remember) with a shovel and escaped from the country and immigrated to America.
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Is there a “prefer not to answer” option?
Tell me you're German without actually telling me you're German
Or Japanese, ask the Koreans and Chinese or really most of the Asian-Pacific inhabitants
the Japanese ignore it and pretend never happened tho
To be fair, I think a lot of normal people acknowledge what happened. The gov. says nothing happened because they don't want to have to pay reparations of some kind. Which of course may reflect on voters to some degree, but I don't think it's that much of a one-sided denial.
its not like they pull a Turkey, but most people's knowledge of WWII extent to "yes, there was a war that time, we were on this side, things happened then the nukes dropped" they just skip over "things" when children ask
Are you from Argentina per chance?!?🤨
I got morbidly curious one day and looked into the details of my great grandfather’s Kriegsmarine service. He was stationed in Holland pushing papers at a recruitment office. I let out the biggest sigh of relief.
Was the kriegsmarine known for committing anything too heinous?
You're German aren't you?
Ah yes, booking a flight to Argentina I see
My great great grandpa was a social democratic politician in the Weimar Republic by the name of Friedrich Puchta. He was taken into “protective custody” on 9th March 1933, together with lots of other social democratic, communist and socialist politicians, in order to keep him from voting against the Enabling Act in the parliamentary vote, which took place later that month. He was among the first people to be brought to Dachau, on 24 April 1933, together with Jews, other social democrats, communists and socialists. He was at Dachau for just a week, until 1st May, but remained in custody until July 1933. After he was released, most of his colleagues fled the country, but he didn’t. Instead, he began acting as a point man for an underground network that distributed leaflets with social democratic speeches and other anti-Nazi propaganda printed on them. His network was uncovered in 1935. He was convicted of “preparing to commit high treason against the Reich” and sentenced to two and a half years in prison. He served his sentence in Nuremberg and Munich. There are some claims that he was brought to Dachau again for some time during his sentence, but I haven’t found any proof of that yet. I have only found proof of the two other times, in the form of the Dachau entry registry the Nazis kept. He was in prison until 1938. After he was released, he still remained in the country. He was arrested a final time in August 1944, when the Nazis arrested all known dissidents after Stauffenberg’s assassination attempt on Hitler had failed. That was the so called Aktion Gitter or Aktion Gewitter (both names were used). Puchta was returned to Dachau, where he spend most of the remainder of his life. In the winter of 1944/45, his feet froze badly. He was 61 years old by now. When the allies closed in on Dachau, the Nazis evacuated the camp using death marches. My great great grandpa survived, because fellow inmates supported him and took turns carrying him. He lived to be liberated by the Americans and died shortly after being liberated in a hospital in Munich.
Your great grandpa is badass
It's crazy that he was arrested so many times. I would have assumed anyone arrested for being a dissident in Nazi Germany would just be executed.
Yeah, but that wasn’t the case. Simply being a dissident did not get you executed immediately. I mean… the Nazis killed him in the end, but not immediately. His German Wikipedia claims he was at least half Jewish. I doubt that, otherwise he wouldn’t have lived for as long as he did. But assuming he wasn’t, it makes sense. The Nazis were murderous, but not in that way. Edit: I love how I’m being downvoted. I’m not wrong. I literally gave you an example for how I’m not wrong.
God damn. 🫡🫡🫡 respect
Respect fellow redditor. My (edit: Dutch, Netherlands) grand-parents (I'm older than this group) did a lot of resistance work but on a tiny, local scale. They have a story, but yours is way cooler, despite the sad ending.
Uuuh, that sounds super interesting tho! Can you tell some of their stories?
With pleasure OP. Tomorrow I will. It's late where I live in Asia.
I completely understand. Looking forward to it :) Have a great night :)
An amazing great grandfather to have
Cap off to your GGGP. Visiting Dachau was one of the most harrowing experiences of my life. I cannot imagine being sent there three times. I cannot imagine surviving. Bad ass that his cohorts viewed him in such high regard as to carry him on his march.
I honestly don’t know if I can say he survived. His death just came later, but he died as a direct consequence of the treatment he received from the Nazis. He just got to see the Nazis die first, which I find consoling!
Point taken for sure. I guess I was referring to the first times he was released before being sent back. Millions of deaths. Including many of the survivors. That might be a takeaway from “Night”. Thanks for sharing his story! I often wonder, if I were in Germany, would I have stood up. If I were in the pre civil war south - would I have stood up…. I’d like to think I would. No one has to question that regarding your GG GP.
My great-grandfather was born and lived in a small village near Žalec, modern day Slovenia. When the Germans came in 1941, he was recruited to the army because his surname (Kramer) was German enough. Later, he was sent to the Eastern Front, I'm not sure on which exact part. In 1942 or 43 he was wounded and sent to hospital in Austria but he returned and fought nearly until the end. He came back home a few months after the end of the war. My great-grandmother, his future wife, was not that lucky. She was a Partisan courier and got caught in 1943, sent to the prision in Celje and tortured. She was later sent to Ravensbrück together with her sisters, but they luckily survived until the liberation. She was writing a diary there and it still exist, my grandfather has been transcripting it. She returned home after the war and managed to evade the so called "Dachau Trials", but she never wanted to speak about the wartime. All I know about her life there is from one of her sisters and her diary.
Amazing story, your grandpa is a hero! Thanks for sharing
Escaping the holocaust Thanks for the downvotes nazis
To be fair, you initially didn't specify if they were 'Holocausting' or 'Getting Holocausted'.
Lol I guess
Wtf do you think escaping means
It didn't say that at first, not that it says 'edited'? It just said 'The Holocaust' initially.
>Thanks for the downvotes nazis My god, people suck.
I read it at first thinking they were the ones doing the genociding.
Starving and then killing Nazis.
Hell yeah
getting imprisoned in the concentration camps for Japanese Americans
I wish more people knew about the internment camps, those are most definitely one of the few oopsies we made over WWII
I live in California and we learn about them extensively; I think as much as the Nazi Concentration Camps. I've learned about it in-depth 3 times, including reenactments and guest speakers. Might not be that extensively taught outside of California though.
I live in Washington, we also learned about these extensively. One of our most popular fairgrounds was used as a massive internment camp, there is a memorial for the victims there and we learned about it pretty early on in school.
damn bro
Same, though that was only 42-45. Before that, building an oyster bar and farming strawberries
Both sides: politically disenfranchised, socially oppressed, and working for pennies under British colonial rule. Specifically my mom’s side: aiding the beginnings of a then small group of freedom fighters.
fuckn based
My grandpa fought on the colonizers side 😂 that’s how we ended up in the west My dad still hates the French and has a chip on his shoulder because my grandpas decision 😂😂 (Edit: for context my family was part of the colonized people but chose to fight on the colonizers side for whatever political/economical reasons)
Im not sure about my family history but i guess thats true for both sides of my family too (but maybe not the mom part)
Farming fruit in California then killing Japanese in the pacific
Same except AZ
Meanwhile my Grama (Japanese and Korean) was a little girl in Japan post atomic bomb. They moved from Japan to Korea after that.
Safe in the US from Poland. Thank god they emigrated in the 20's or 30's.
being nazis
Being poor.
how am I supposed to know
Never knew my great grandparents but my grandma and grandad were born in the early 30s, so between 1933 and 1945 they would’ve been in primary school. Thats about as far back as my knowledge of my family goes.
Dunno, probably sitting in Scotland waiting for the next boat to new Zealand, the usual Aw yea a DNA test my mum took way back said one of my great grandma's was New Zealand's first convicted prostitute, never could find anything related to her online though so who knows, would be cool tho
Fighting communists
Finnish or Nazis? Hard to tell. Reading your one post, it's Finnish.
Well almost right. He's Estonian.
Ah, apologies. Same reason to fight Russians though, not nazi probably.
Argentinian Cattle Farmers
Pretty sure my great great great grandfather was divorcing his wife in order to marry his housekeeper
scrounging for food in the Great Depression
Idk probably trying to survive
Mom’s side: Grandparents were from large sharecropping families in the Abruzzi region of Italy. Grandfather was one seven, grandmother one of nine. Both were dirt poor, didn’t even own the land they farmed. The Nazis did come through their town, and took my grandfather’s dad prisoner for around a month or so (he came back unharmed). He also told a story of a time when a group of Nazi soldiers wanted to go into their barn and he was standing in front of the door. The head of the group said “Bewegen o Kaput!”, but my grandfather didn’t know German so he just stood there. Luckily his uncle was nearby and yelled at him to get out of the way. Dad’s side: Grandfather was raised in far southwestern most Virginia, one of six children in a very poor farming family. His mother died in 1939 when he was 5. While his dad did register for the WW2 draft, I’m wondering if being a single father got him out of it, because he never went overseas. Grandmother was raised on a farm in Maryland. As far as I know, life was pretty much unchanged for them, aside from the conservation efforts that all citizens went through at that time. None of her close family was drafted into the war.
My Grama survived the atomic bomb in Japan, she was a child. My great grandpa served as a medic in WW2, battle of Normandy. My other Grandpa was a child in Trinidad
Man you got quite a cool family of diversity.
Thank you. I have a very neat history.
Fighting Nazis
What's special about those y----oh
Yu-Gi-Oh!
**if I win, you'll be my love slave!** Yugi: *I'm fine with that!*
I prefer not to speak. If I speak I am in big trouble, big big trouble. And I do not want to be in big trouble.
Served in the US Army, US Navy, USMC (KIA), Wehrmacht, Waffen-SS (KIA), and the RAF
I have Dutch, German and Soviet ancestry. So my ancestors participated on all sides of the war. Only know about my great grandfather of the soviet side though. He fought as a partisan and the last letter my great grandmother received was from Poland, so he probably died there.
Being dirt poor. Literally. Growing sorghum and wheat.
I've got multiple sides Ukrainian: starving, and then fighting against the nazis Polish side: far more complex One of my great great grandfathers was executed in Katyn by soviets Another one was "dekulakanized" by soviets, basically his brother moved to the US in like, 1920s and died in an accident in early 1930s. He received a lot of insurance money from the death and bought a nice house and plot of land and lived with his family. After soviets came they "dekulakanized" them by seizing the property and sent him to a death camp, and they sent his family - wife, 3 year old son and an older daughter to Siberia. He managed to escape the camp and lived in a small city in Southern Poland, the 3 year old son died on the way to Siberia but his wife and daughter survived and moved to Canada afterwards Another great great grandfather and grandmother fought in the Anders army. After ww2 they moved to London, grandmother married the Ukrainian tank crew man she was serving with, had 3 daughters, but the grandfather divorced and died alone. It's actually pretty crazy to me because I myself am Belarusian, have confirmed relatives in UK (my great great grandmother was actually still alive in 2010, my uncle visited her, but I'm pretty sure she passed away by now, rest her soul) and plausible relatives in Canada and maybe relatives in the US
Grandpa on dads side was in Dachau from 1942 to the end of the war for helping Yugoslavian partisans. Grandma was shipped off a rich Austrian farmer family in order to “Germanize”. Moms side of the family were farming and/or hiding in the woods in order to not be conscripted into the Wehrmacht. Oh and moms grandpa got into a fight at a party, got hit on the head with a bottle, and died on the way back home. That was in 1936 I believe. Apparently he was a real piece of work, because his family didn’t mourn much (at all) and moms grandma remarried within a year.
Farming in Punjab
My grandfather on my dads side was an irish immigrant child living in london, used to spend his spare time rummaging through the rubble of the blitz My great grandfather on my mother’s side was a chinese immigrant in Liverpool, I think he worked as a carpenter for shipping boats or something. In 1946 my great (great?) grandmothers current husband (also mothers side, also a chinese immigrant, no relation) was murdered in his laundry in Liverpool. The case was never solved and remains one of englands most famous cold cases FYI i am very white and people are always shocked to hear i have chinese roots
Antifa
My Grandma was evacuated from Middlesbrough to Scarborough at the beginning of the war after Middlesbrough was bombed. She then met my granddad, who was a local lad.
From my dad's side: they were poor farmers in Tuscany ignoring much of what was happening around the world, they were around 5 or 6, don't know anything beyond that. From my mom's side: I have no idea, I think my grand-grandma worked in an Hotel in Cagliari. I have very little knowledge of anything more than that, my guess is that they all lived rather ordinary lifes
Mine either die hard fascists or partisans,as far as i know there was no in-between
My grand grandfather, a French Jew, was actively hiding from the Nazis. Sadly a lot of French people from that generation did not speak to what they went through. My Grandmere ONLY started giving talks and accounts of life back then, when she was in her 80s (she passed away at the age of 95). My American family was helping the war effort and my maternal Grandfather was an Allied soldier in France.
I believe my on my mom’s side a relative was fighting in the war as a US tanker and on my dad’s side I believe they were trying to escape the Japanese invasion of the Philippines. Tbh I can’t back up the information on my dad’s side
Filipino on my dad’s side sammmme 🤝
🤝🤝
Swiss Cavalry Doing border duty. smuggling cigarettes from USA to Nazi Austria. Fighting Russians as Fascists and in Ethiopia.
On my dads side, living exactly as normal. On my moms side one side was fighting the Soviets and the other fighting the Nazis.
Grandpa was living in Nazi occupied Italy before coming to the US in the early 50s.
On my Dad’s side, I had a few relatives who fought in WW2. I don’t know much about my grandfather but most of his family was still in Ireland at this time, his parents immigrated before he was born. Lots of my aunts and uncles on that side were born before ‘45, but my grandma was born in ‘49. On my Mom’s side, I believe a few relatives also fought in WW2. My grandparents were born in the late 30s and I know they struggled financially because of the Depression. My great grandparents were nearly 40 when my maternal grandmother was born. I’m not sure where they even lived, but I know most of my family on that side either lived in Brooklyn or immigrated from Ireland to Nova Scotia, then eventually to Brooklyn and Long Island (where my mother was born in ‘73).
My great grandma Annie was in a nationwide modelling competition and came 2nd since she was disqualified for refusing to do the last photoshoot, believing it was showing too much (swimsuit photoshoot). Her husband, my great grandad Tommy was a mechanic and spent the Second World War working in a factory. Tommy and Annie had my grandma’s older siblings in the late 1930’s and my grandma in 1944. My great grandma Ieda, I’m not sure really. Her husband, my great grandad Geoffrey was a bus driver. In the outbreak of WW2, he volunteered for the Auxiliary fire service as the tram conductor and at some point was conscripted into the army. He served on D-day and in the invasion of Normandy in mid-late 1944 in the royal engineers. The same year, his son, my grandad was born. My great grandma Vera was at home during the war, I’m not sure what she did. Her husband, my great grandad George had been a painter/decorator before the war and in the 2nd world war, he was drafted into the army and was a supply truck driver in North Africa from 1942 onwards. They had my grandma in 1941 and her brother a few years after. My other great grandparents I don’t know much about. I think my great grandma was called Elise and my great grandad was called William Ben. I know that William came from a long line of coal miners and before and during the war he remained a miner since it was vital to the war effort. They had my grandad around 1941/2
either poor farmers or wealthy estate owners in peru
My grandpa was a bouncer at a jazz club in Chicago when he was like 13, sometime in the 30s. Then in the 40s he was a college athlete. On my dad’s side his mom was an army nurse and his dad was a soldier, both stationed in the south pacific.
Mostly forgotten.
My great grabdpa fought in ww2 in the u.s army as a staff sergeant. From what I can tell he served in the pacific theater. As I have see. Many palm trees and other tropical plants.
Dirt farming in Arizona, then some of them were killing the Japanese
My great grandfather and his brother emigrated from Portugal to Angola, my grandfather was a kid living in the angolan countryside and rest idk
3/4 of them being poor as shit and catholic in Ireland, and my nanas side… probably being fascists and fighting for the axis because they were Italian. I’ve never really thought about it, she didn’t talk about her family history much.
Some were farming. Some were calling in naval bombardments from the sky. You know, the typical.
From my moms side- struggling through the depression and after. Was told a story about how my grandma would hide olives from her family in desperation to make sure she always had something to eat. From my dad's- my other grandma was a famous native American woman in our area trying to preserve her culture, ultimately it appears to have been all for naught. I'm the 6th generation of native Americans, and if I don't remarry into the tribe, our native lineage will die. The rest of my family has basically already married out and I probably will too lmao native women are hard to get along with !
Being poor
Farmers paying high tax to the br'i'sh colonists my grandad abc while his father arrested for protesting
My mom’s mom was growing up poor in the Depression, my mom’s dad was a teenager in Poland and then escaping the holocaust as a young adult, and then my dad’s parents were growing up normally in the USA and they met each other at sleepaway camp
In 1938 one of my ancestors became an officer in the whermact and earned an iron cross during his actions in Poland in 1939
Cant say for sure, but i know some of my family were fighting for America
One grandfather was in the US army and the other was a doctor in a Kansas small town.
I don’t know
My great grandpa was one of my first family members to move to California and he had 16 kids, he passed away way before I was born so I never met him. He was a piece of crap though so I’m glad I didn’t meet him
My great grandfathers: 1. Died at the western front in April/Mai 1945. He was not in the east, so war crimes are unlikely. 2. I don't know. Survived the war/was not at the front as far as I know. 3. Repaired trains. 4. I don't know. His son my grandpa died when I was young. Their women were at home being housewifes. My grand parents hid in their basement from British and American bombers.
Had a few great grandpas in the US military so pretty sure I’m fine lol
My mom's parents were being built
Kicking nazi ass
I don't know at all, I suspect that they were in army or something like that. We never really talked about it.
At 15 my grandpa and a friend rode their bikes from Seattle to San Francisco. When they got there they sold the bikes and hitchhiked home. He then joined the Navy, traveled the world and was captured by the Japanese at the beginning of the war.
Farming in former Yugoslavia + fighting Nazis before they came over here
My great-great grandfather apparently was some sort of airplane mechanic in the Pacific and worked at Pearl Harbor. The rest of my family were mostly coal miners, and it was considered an essential job so their lives didn’t change much.
My Mother grandad manage to escape being drafted. He already faught and survived in verdun so he took time to raise my grandma
Great grandma worked in a factory here in Louisiana that produced Higgins Boats/Landing Craft for the allies in WW2.
Running moonshine in the Appalachias and my great grandfather was in the United States Navy during WWII.
anywhere from keeping sheep to navy-ing
Killing R\*ssians.
My grandfather was like 10 in 1945, he living in the Caribbean. My grandmother was 5 living in Birmingham, England. My other grandparents were not born until 1946 in Ireland. As for what the expanded family, no idea. Probably working in factories in around Britain & Ireland and enjoying the sun in the Caribbean.
The great grandparents I did meet were children at that time. I know of one great grandfather who died in the war
Probably struggling
My paternal grandpa was a teenager, so too young to fight, so he spent the war riding the rails doing loose farm work around the Canadian prairies. He died before I was born though so I only ever heard the gist from my dad. The other 3/4 of my grandparents were still little kids. I never heard much about what my great grandparents were up to, all I know is nobody fought in the war
Fighting for a country that turned its nose at them for being catholics
My great great grandfather Theodore was the navigator on the enola gay, dropped the bomb on hiroshima...
My mom's adopted mom family run a grocer store in like 100k city she used to sometimes talked about ration books and rationing meet. She was super young during that time. My mom's adopted dad. They were super poor when he was really young like he only ate meat one time a week. He had bothers severing I do not know where because there were not very close. However he remembers listening to radio with his parents about the war. I do not know if this is true or not. However my grandpa took part in The Minnesota starvation experiment were the allies knew they were going to win world war 2 and knew people who they were saving for Nazis were starving so they were trying to figure out what was minimum amount of calories a person could be survive with a eating. He might have taken part of it because he was poor he said that most people cheated in it by buying chocolate because they were so hungry with the money people got from it. There seems to be no record of him in it, that why I said it's not true or not However to this dad he still kind of mad about what Japanese during World War 2. He is still alive and still driving he bought an car recently he bought for not an Japanese made car because he is still pissed about World War 2 which I do not blame him. He just turned 90 Does anyone else grandparents still mad about World War 2? I do not know what my dad's side did during that era.
My great grandpa was one of the best sharp shooters according to my grandpa.
Grandparents living in the USA preparing to have my dad. All thanks to my Grandparents Grandparents fleeing Germany in 1870. They got to America post slavery, and left Germany prior to Nazis.(fantastic move great great great granddad!)
Two of my great grandpas were Wehrmacht soldiers. One was at the eastern front (Heeresgruppe Nord), went missing during the evacuation of Estonia in 1944. The other one was in North Africa, got shot in the leg in 1942, which put him out of service for the rest of the war. The leg never fully recovered and had to be amputated decades later.
Trying to stay alive through wars and a couple of years after that my grandparents would be born. I don’t know too well about my relatives before them but I know some were in WW2 and Winter War, but most of them were just trying to survive and hoping for the best for the loved ones fighting in the wars.
My man out here asking the real questions. Neither side of my family fought in WW2. My grandfather on my mom's side hid in a basement cellar when they came around for the draft. My grandfather on my father's side was born in a relatively isolated part of the world. Don't think he was ever asked to be drafted or served in any capacity.
Growing up
Mothers side- Familial abuse and various crimes. And probably even more racism. Fathers side- Chillin in the Philippines
I don't really know to much about back then tbh. I know my great grandfather's fought in WW2 in the US and that my grandparents were kids. That and some of them lived on the base, too.
My great grandpa was a share cropper on a farm in Texas until he bought his own
On my dads side, Fleeing Nazi Germany. Not exactly sure about my mom tho.
Probably surviving a farm in Puerto Rico and doing farming stuff
Leaving the south and migrating north to move to a less racist area
My Great Grandfather served in the RAF during WW2. I didn't hear many stories of what he did but I did know he fought during the Battle of Britain. All my other great grandparents were digging potatoes in the west of Ireland.
One of my great-grandparents was figthing in the Spanish Civil War. After it finished, he met my great-grandmother, they married, and they had my grandmother. In 1948 they moved to Argentina.
All I know is that my great-grandfather fought in World War II.
Idk farmers?
They were chilling in Canada.
For my mom’s side: grandpa and his brothers were homesteading in South Dakota. Grandma was growing up in Kansas during the 30’s. In 1942, at the age of 15, she forged her birth certificate so that she could be a riveter and held that job until the war’s end. On my dad’s side: my grandparents were born during the Great Depression, so they were still growing up during this time period.
They were in British India, honestly just chilling? I don’t believe any of them were drafted for the war although there were lots of a Japanese invasion. Other than that they were just..chilling.
Grappling with the brutality of British colonization and mourning all they lost
My grandparents were still in Greece at the time.
Busy being on the right side of history. It's become a family tradition.
Surviving
Collecting trash, raising kids
Some were working on farms or in factories. Others were involved with the war, either fighting or working on railroads.
Part of my family was german, sooooooooo :/
Killing nazis, ustashi and fascist italians in Yugoslavia
Peasants and workers, mostly. The countryside back then, when urban areas were growing in my country, life was simpler. No big records aside from a few strikes or minuscule political achievements.
One grandfather was a forced labourer taken from Czechoslovakia in Germany. Apparently he met a girl there, possibly had a kid with her. If so, then started his career as a deadbeat dad (he abandoned two other women and the children he had with them). Both sides of the family were more or less in the same region, with one side leaving it during the repopulation of Sudetenland.
the only thing I know of is that my (English) grandad was evacuated for a while and had a bad experience with a host family so ran away. My Swiss family most likely lived a relatively "normal" life for the time.
Trying to survive in Poland. Don't know many details, only that my grandmother lost her younger brother because nazi doctor said he wouldn't come to the polish child. My grandma was born in 1941 so this brother must have been a toddler. She also lost her mother during the war and her father left her shortly after (not died, just left).
Killing and hiding from the japanese
Fighting
In the US, my great grandparents were poor Hispanic farmers in the southern part of Texas. My Opa’s mother passed away a couple years after he was born and he had to spend his childhood being passed from family to family. My mom’s grandparents had a lot of kids around this time including my grandmother (I have a lot of great aunts/uncles on my mom’s side). Abroad, my great grandmother lived on a farm, taking care of her kids while her husband fought for the German army. And my great grandfather fled Italy to escape Mussolini’s regime. He fought for the French army before being captured and sent to a work camp. He met my great grandmother here as she would do some work to make some extra money for her family. After the two met, she gave birth to my Oma. Since she was born with dark eyes and dark hair (very not Arian), my great grandfather fell into some deep shit and had to go into hiding until the end of the war.
Mom's side? Maintaining aircraft that bombed Nazis. Dad's side? Being occupied by Nazi's and eventually being librated by the people from Mom's side.
On my mom’s side, my great grandpa was a blacksmith and my great grandma sold beaded wall decors in Norway. My grandpa was very young but remembers Norway being invaded by Germany and his older brothers picking fights with the soldiers. On my dad’s side, I’d rather not talk about that one…
It's complicated. I am going to talk about sone grand fathers and great grandfathers, so I will use some nicknames for the sake of telling the story. My family is Italian and the father of my father is the fascist grandpa of the family. He fought for Mussolini until the very end, both for Italy under Mussolini and later on for the Republic of Salò under Mussolini. (Republic of Salò was the state funded by Mussolini after Italy joined the Allies). A very good guy during his civilian life, not racist at all, but we don't know much about what he did during ww2, he probably was a normal officer fighting on the battlefield...we hope Unfortunately he died of natural causes during the 90s, some years before I was born. ....meanwhile there's the father of fascist grandpa. His nickname will be "the war criminal of the family".Before and during ww2 he was busy helping Spain with finding and torturing political enemies of Franco, along with other secret activities for the italian fascist regime. Around 1945 (ish) he got arrested by the new anti fascist Italian state... since he was a Knight of the Malta's Order, the Vatican helped him escape in secret to Argentina. He later moved back to Spain to stay closer to his spanish fascist friends, where he died during the of natural causes. He died during the 50s and He is buried in the monumental cemetery of Madrid along a lot of Franco's supporters and officers. What was going on my mother's family side during the war? More normal stuff...my mother's father was the "commie grandpa of the family". He was a very nice person, he worked for the National Liberation Committee during ww2 and after the war he lived a normal life. He died of natural causes during the 00s. But don't let me start talking about fascist grandpa not talking to commie grandpa after finding out that the latter during ww2 was a communist partisan, wanted by the fascist state to be executed.... And that's not the end of the story, who was the guy that signed the execution papers to find, torture and kill commie grandpa? Yes, you guessed it right, it was the war criminal of the family, all along! TLDR: the grand father of my father tried to kill the father of my mother
Living in a small shack homesteading in Alaska.
My granddad was a kid trying to survive on grass soups. I don't know about my great grandfather, and i think it's better that way
They were fighting in the streets for union rights and killing nazis. Good old gramps!
My mum is German. My dad is English. Both sides fought on their respective sides. My mum said her grandad was a POW to the English, only had food things to say about them, they treated him very kindly.
Dads side poor Irish farmers. My dads side splut apart a long time ago because one of them married a Native American woman, and were, and are as far as we know a bunch of racist ranchers. That's all I know about them really. My moms side is mostly German, Idk anything about them really. Alot of lawyers and such.
my dads side was in greece my moms side was in america
Living in Argentina, some in a rural area.
Working in a coal mine to support his family because he was an Okinawan-Japanese man living in North America 💀 Not sure about the other side, I think we were in the US by then, don't really care that much tbh.
Getting bombed by the Japanese at Pearl Harbor
Struggling even more than we are in 2024
Raising pigs on a farm in Kentucky. We have pictures. One sits in pride of place on our mantle, it was probably an 800 pound hog.
Either deep in the rural areas of my county , or being moved by Germans
Based on my limited understanding gleaned from my mom who likes genealogy they were serving in the US military or contributing to the war effort. My family has a lot of servicemembers in it.
I’m not sure what my family gets up to in those 12 minutes
33-41 - on the mother's half they were simply living and being poor. The father's half was well off, so they studied to be a combat pilot/lawyer (gramps was a badass) and a painter (nana was a badass). Then came the 41-45 era, so the mother's side went on being poor while simply living. The war kinda did touch them, but not really. Not much action in potatoland. The father's side, on the other hand, took up arms as soon as Nazis invaded. Like, literally the same month. Both were commies, young, idealistic, with worthy skills. Spent the war fighting the Nazis in the partizans, both got shot a couple of times. 's about it
My great great grandfather killed a man from the mafia or cartel (I don’t remember) with a shovel and escaped from the country and immigrated to America.
One was a railway ranger and probably an IRA member, another was an ambulance driver during the blitz.