Originally Posted By: JHZR2
Originally Posted By: Cujet
I spent time as corporate flight crew overseas in the 80's and early 90's.
Dresden still had bombed out buildings that were fenced off. I always thought they kept them around as a reminder. However, a recent documentary brought up the fact that reconstruction continued well into the 1990's. I found that fascinating.
Also, we went to East Germany once, for an afternoon. It was quite interesting. Just about everything was unfamiliar, the cars, the shops, the poverty, the government attitude. The contrast was stark.
Time erases all.
Dresden was an awesome city. We went there and I wasnt sure what to expect, as most of the aunts and uncles on one grandparent's lineage were there as they escaped the Russians and Ukranians who were raping and bayonetting ethnic German women in the farther east portions of what was Germany, now Poland. They were firebombed in Dresden and killed. They werent Nazis, werent members of the party, just people, living their life.
Quote:
Flight of ethnic Germans
Main article: Evacuation of German civilians during the end of World War II
According to historian Antony Beevor and other commentators, the soldiers of the Red Army looted and committed many atrocities. In anticipation of the Soviet advance, many millions of Germans fled west at the last moments, attempting to avoid the counter-invasion, seeking to survive by reaching central or western Germany, or to the American and British lines.[33] This was the largest and fastest migration in history.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vistula%E2%80%93Oder_Offensive#Flight_of_ethnic_Germans
The issue is, most will say that is fair that they lose everything that they had, be stripped of their rightful possessions (land, buildings, etc., for which they got nothing), and then killed by firebombs, because after all, the actions of another justified these people being killed. Eye for an eye, right? ugh. I think that is why they try to forget and avoid it. The "holocaust", if you are willing to believe all history exactly as it is iterated in today's history books, is the most publicized thing to come out of the 20th century, IMO. Just sticking with the 40s. we have all but forgotten Pearl Harbor, D-day, etc., yet you get a TON of rememberance about the holocaust in school. Spread out a bit more, and we forget about the 20-30 million ethnic Russians killed in the 1918 Bolshevik revolution, or the 0.5-1.5M in the Armenian genocide, or all the other atrocities. In 50 years, few will remember much about 9-11, but I bet the holocaust will still be taught. And Im not saying this to be anti-semitic at all in any way, Im just questioning it, because it is what strikes me to be the case. Its weird, and the German people still carry the stigma of it. It does amaze me that they make it essentially illegal to question anything about it... There is information on US and Canadian servers, much of it from whackos, but some of it very interesting, as it discusses the news as reported on the topic from throughout Europe, and the inconsistencies with what we are now taught. I think that the German people are getting sick of the stigma now though, as parents who have lived that as first generation post WWII kids, are coming around having their own families, and dont want to see all that pushed onto their kids for yet another generation.
Anyway, in Dresden, they did a great job rebuilding the historic places. What amazed me most is how much of the Saxon treasure was maintained and protected, even under communist rule, so now that they have rebuilt the vaults, you can see the amazing stuff they have. I think it was the best museum we had ever been to.
Don't forget the rape of Nanking and the Japanese atrocities which nobody mentions either........