I recently read my German grandma’s memoirs. During the war she signed up to help in Nazi occupied Minsk. Of course for the Nazis “help” meant ensuring the local newspaper printed propaganda. And beforehand they were instructed to be harsh with the “dumb Russians”.
She once got into trouble because one serial story in the newspaper tended towards a revolutionary message. Apparently the translator didn’t care for the story so he stopped reading it and just let it get printed as he received it. At least that was his official excuse.
Anyways, of course she grew closer to some of the locals. And of course not every single one of them could help with sabotaging the occupiers. So it was extra sad when she eventually had to flee from the approaching Russian army (a day after the officers loudly proclaimed at a Nazi party that they were about to win the war) and had to live with the knowledge that the Russian’s she left behind were all likely to be executed as collaborators.
She couldn’t take them with her because the Nazis would likely kill them for being Russian. Or at the very least put them into concentration camps. And she already knew they were bad, just not how bad.
My dad had a Latvian friend in his youth, and dad would tell me about how sometimes when they’d had a bit much to drink he’d tell stories about fighting on the front lines in Latvia. For the Germans, against the Russians. He was by absolutely no means a Nazi supporter, but he had to weigh the options and try to figure out which one was less likely to end with him and his family lying dead in a ditch somewhere.
It really sucks that Latvia didn’t regain independence until 1991. I hope he lived long enough to see that.
I recently read my German grandma’s memoirs. During the war she signed up to help in Nazi occupied Minsk. Of course for the Nazis “help” meant ensuring the local newspaper printed propaganda. And beforehand they were instructed to be harsh with the “dumb Russians”.
She once got into trouble because one serial story in the newspaper tended towards a revolutionary message. Apparently the translator didn’t care for the story so he stopped reading it and just let it get printed as he received it. At least that was his official excuse.
Anyways, of course she grew closer to some of the locals. And of course not every single one of them could help with sabotaging the occupiers. So it was extra sad when she eventually had to flee from the approaching Russian army (a day after the officers loudly proclaimed at a Nazi party that they were about to win the war) and had to live with the knowledge that the Russian’s she left behind were all likely to be executed as collaborators.
She couldn’t take them with her because the Nazis would likely kill them for being Russian. Or at the very least put them into concentration camps. And she already knew they were bad, just not how bad.
My dad had a Latvian friend in his youth, and dad would tell me about how sometimes when they’d had a bit much to drink he’d tell stories about fighting on the front lines in Latvia. For the Germans, against the Russians. He was by absolutely no means a Nazi supporter, but he had to weigh the options and try to figure out which one was less likely to end with him and his family lying dead in a ditch somewhere.
It really sucks that Latvia didn’t regain independence until 1991. I hope he lived long enough to see that.