What image or event of 2nd World War has moved you the most?

Benoit Douville · Post by **Benoit Douville** » 19 Jul 2002 03:22

What image have moved you the most Ovidius???

I understand that for your country having Ceausescu after World War II was not a real progress...

Benjamin Fanjoy · Post by **Benjamin Fanjoy** » 19 Jul 2002 03:29

I think the image that most moved me, well it was a video short, of the large swaztika being blown up atop the Reichstag, it was a sign that the world was now free from maddness.

Ovidius · Post by **Ovidius** » 19 Jul 2002 03:41

Benoit Douville wrote:I understand that for your country having Ceasescu after World War II was not a real progress...

Yeah right. "Bad Boy" Ceausescu, on whom you are all going to throw the guilt.

He had been, more or less, a rather good ruler for most of his years. The bad things had started because he didn't retire earlier - 1980-1982 - then both the country would have fared better and he was going to live. Bad move.

The authors of the worst things that happened here had acted from 1944 to the end of the 1950s, under the Red Communist flag, and were not the Romanian Communists. And, to the great amazement of Victor & others, neither were they the Soviet military occupants, but a third category, about what I can't speak.

I've posted this Off Topic message only because the Western way of thinking almost everything in stereotypes ("Hitler was mad", "Stalin was tyrant", "Arabs are savage terrorists", "Ceausescu was bad" etc) is an idiotic thing that drives me mad.

Please answer to the following question in a PM:

You wrote: "not a real progress". Progress in comparison to what?

~Ovidius

Caldric · Post by **Caldric** » 19 Jul 2002 04:07

LOL Scott,

You are one strange apple.

At any rate I will not debate the chances of those agents being attacked by angry mobs.....

The one that some around here claim to be fake...

Is brutal.

Benoit Douville · Post by **Benoit Douville** » 19 Jul 2002 05:01

Well Ovidius i answer to your question via private message but maybe you could share with us what was that third category in Romania that you can't speak about it!

Roland · Post by **Roland** » 19 Jul 2002 05:19

Pictures of brutaly tortured and murdered Latvian, Lithuanian and Estonian people - men, woman and little children. They where found after opening KGB prisons after soviets was kicked out of Baltic countries in june and july of 1941. These people are the forgotten ones. These pictures always make me depressed!

admfisher · Post by **admfisher** » 19 Jul 2002 05:27

Now lets see, was when I finally came to grips with the reality that all sides commited crimes against humanity.
OR....

Grade 10: MR. H. my german teacher. He was a great guy. We all though he was a wiz, he could speak 7 languages and had seen much of the world. But then the day he told us of the morning after the first big Hamburg raid. He said he was only 13 and they collected bodies for days.

Or...
How about when grampa gets his far away look and goes quite. Finally one day he opened his lid a little to talk of the events after D-Day. He was a 25 pdr battery runner.

And now today another version of what happened in Afganistan to our poor Canadian lads.

Now we have to versions of what happened.

The first was the F16 pilot was told not to fire, now he is given to go ahead, and after the attack the AWAC's gave an 'OK'.

The horror does not end in any amount. The loss of one know is the same as the loss of hundreds of unkown. That as it may be.

tonyh · Post by **tonyh** » 19 Jul 2002 11:03

For me its a pic of two soldiers. One German and one British talking and passing a cigarette between them. It was taken in Dunkirk in '44 during a German called truce to allow French civilians to evacuate the battle area. It clearly demolishes all the stupid wartime and post-wartime propaganda of the German soldier in one sweep.

I kind of understand what Scott is saying. Its hard for some people to feel what they first felt when they first view pictures like the Ghetto boy above. They have been used and abused over and over that they have almost completely lost the impact they once had.

Tony

Kurasier · Post by **Kurasier** » 19 Jul 2002 11:25

The photo that has moved me most is the photo were you see three german soldiers on a Stosstrupp near CAen in 1944. On of the soldiers was hit when the photo was shot.
Christoph

Walther Darré · Post by **Walther Darré** » 19 Jul 2002 20:00

I'd have to say when Hitler shakes hand with the youngsters who are off to be killed in the battle for Berlin. I react strongly when I know the Allies were more interested in photographing "skeleton Jews" (i.e. starved) rather than saving them. "I'ma send this picture back home to Alabama" you know...

What would you say is the most "glad" picture you have of WW2 then, like Allies smiling after a victory... or maybe when Hitler is happy?? The "dance" in France is rather ludicrous! (or will I have to start a new topic?)

Andy H · Post by **Andy H** » 19 Jul 2002 21:29

Caldric's picture is very moving and is amongst many that are imprinted deep within me, but the one image that always stirs me most is the picture of HMS Barham exploding in the Med. As the ship capsizes the crew are seen moving onto the keel- then they are gone as the magazines rip the ship apart. Apologies that I havn't a picture of this moment

Andy from the Shire

Annelie · Post by **Annelie** » 19 Jul 2002 21:32

Roland:

Are you referring to this site?

http://home.parks.lv/leonards/BaigaisGa ... s17_19.htm

Annelie

Scott Smith · Post by **Scott Smith** » 20 Jul 2002 06:06

Caldric wrote:LOL Scott,

You are one strange apple.

I don't deny it.

At any rate I will not debate the chances of those agents being attacked by angry mobs...

Well, I don't think the issue is that little Zvi--a "useless eater" who for some reason survived the Holocaust™ (usually defined as the attempt by Hitler to kill all of the Jews that he couldn't work to death)--might be carrying a grenade in his shorts with which to endanger the brave SS troops with.

Instead, I think it is that guerilla's, in the metaphor of Chairman Mao, are like fish swimming in the sea of a host populace, drawing comfort and sustenance from that enemy population. (I would argue that guerillas also draw aid and arms from enemy superpowers directly supporting them, clandestinely or by proxy as well, but that is besides the point.)

Anyway, using Mao's image, what you want to do is "drain the swamp" by controlling the enemy populace somehow, whether contained in ghettoes, concentration camps, or "fortified hamlets," as the U.S. did in South Vietnam.

The U.S. during WWII also considered Japanese-American citizens living on the West Coast to be enemy aliens and "Fifth Columnists" and sent them to concentration camps. There was absolutely nothing to support this position.

And the British put Boer civilians into concentration camps--that is the origin of the word--as well, in order to put pressure on Boer "guerillas" during that South African colonial campaign.

So, the principles of security during irregular/regular war and occupation are nothing new or unique. Plus, clearing the ghettoes was not safe for the Germans by any means and did involve armed resistance and casualties.

Caldric wrote:The one that some around here claim to be fake...

Is brutal.

Yes, I think that photo would be a good candidate for having been faked. How do we know that the woman with baby is Jewish? It may come as a surprise but the Germans fought alongside many civilian refugees, especially while they were on the retreat, and not just German civilians. So the presence of civilians on the battlefield is nothing unusual and it doesn't even look like the rifle is aimed at the woman. Of course, it could simply be a cut-and-paste job, which could account for the compositional oddness of it. I don't know.

Nice picture. It proves nothing. Nobody is denying that the Germans (Wehrmacht and SS), as well as foreign Axis troops and brigands, committed massacres and atrocities.

Scott Smith · Post by **Scott Smith** » 20 Jul 2002 06:13

Cheshire Yeomanry wrote:Caldric's picture is very moving and is amongst many that are imprinted deep within me, but the one image that always stirs me most is the picture of HMS Barham exploding in the Med. As the ship capsizes the crew are seen moving onto the keel- then they are gone as the magazines rip the ship apart. Apologies that I havn't a picture of this moment.

Is this it, Andy?

http://jove.prohosting.com/~sinking/wwii.shtml

Scott Smith · Post by **Scott Smith** » 20 Jul 2002 11:59

White Leopard wrote:As a teen-ager I had a Time-Life book about World War Two. The frontspiece to one of the chapters was the photo of a German soldier shot in mid-stride. The man is caught in the instant before he falls, his rifle dropping, his arms flung up and his head snapping back. This picture has haunted me ever since.

Ghosts do exist. Each of these photos is a suspended instant of time. The people in them are, or may be long dead, but they live on, a tiny chip of their lives stopped in mid-act, like one of those movies where a magic watch causes everything to freeze when the stem is clicked.

Was it similar to this one from the Spanish Civil War?

Axis History Forum

What image or event of 2nd World War has moved you the most?

Pain

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THOSE ATROCITY PHOTOS...

HMS BARHAM...

Re: Images- "Haints"