Translation
I'd been thinking about posting something related to WWII and the present, but wasn't sure about the best place or time prior to seeing the previous post in this thread.
All my late grandparents had traumatizing experiences during the second world war. One grandfather got to ride into Germany in the final days of the war with the Americans. He'd been studying to become an anesthesiologist and that specific knowledge combined with his broader medical training meant he could be of some use. What he saw in terms of human suffering - psychological as well as physical damage - stayed with him 'till the end. My other grandfather had seen his older brother arrested by the Germans (he was forced into hard labour) and had to go into hiding for several years to escape the same fate.
One grandmother grew up in a little village in the North of the Netherlands and her father owned a small transport company. When the Germans invaded all their trucks were taken from the family and her parents sent her and a sister to live with distant relatives in a part of the country that was considered safe(r) at the time and also increased the chances of there being enough food to go around for those who stayed behind. The other grandmother grew up in Indonesia (then still under Dutch rule) and spent "a certain amount of time" in a Japanse internment camp. Whatever happend in that time was not talked about.
There is a lot more to these four wartime stories as well as the people themselves, but an equally important lesson can be taken from what they saw prior to 1939. They saw the rise of fascism and clearly remembered the "growing unease" about what was happening in Germany and elsewhere in Europe and then the gradual realisation of the inevitable. All the warning signs that were brushed off a decade earlier. All the fears that were dismissed. And now, with most of that generation no longer with us, it seems we're increasingly lacking a rearview mirror to fully comprehend what millions upon millions of people died for. Especially the younger generations who grew up in freedom in countries without war on their own soil mostly lack the full understanding of what their current freedoms are worth. And how they were attained. What the parallels are between then and now.
What I'm trying to tell my (step)children and nephews and nieces who bring up current politics is that there is, currently anyway, still a lot of information out there. In books, recordings (with or without moving pictures) and other kinds of archives, but also in the stories great grandparents perhaps told their parents. Who are now our parents or (great)grandparents. It's like... Don't take my word for anything, but do make an effort to find information outside of "social" media and other sources of polarized information, and take that into consideration going forward.
army, but still.