History of All Kinds

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July 17, 1945:

Leaders Harry Truman, Joseph Stalin and Winston Churchill hold their first post World War II meeting at the Potsdam Conference.

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Interesting trio. True, without the Russians helping, the war would have gone on much longer. Their territory was far too tempting for Hitler, and the results were to his undoing. Too bad Poland got tangled up in the negotiations and seems to have gotten the "short end of the stick".
 
logandsawman said:
Interesting trio. True, without the Russians helping, the war would have gone on much longer. Their territory was far too tempting for Hitler, and the results were to his undoing. Too bad Poland got tangled up in the negotiations and seems to have gotten the "short end of the stick".
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It has to be understood that on September 1st 1939, Russia also attacked Poland the same day as Germany. 'To protect their Border' was their excuse.

IMO Russia has to collapse from within and break up into smaller countries before anther country can win against them in a war.
 


KriegslokBR52 said:
And in the communist Poland we as kids were thought that the west is swimming in riches and excess.
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Heck NO!!!

(I may have told this story before)

My grandmother was making the evening meal. In the meal was baked beans.
It wasn't mealtime, but I was hungry. "Grandma can I have my beans now?"
"If you have them now there will be none for you later," she replied.
She gave me a tiny portion of beans which I ate in two (small) spoonsful. ('Grandma has saved me some beans,' I thought.)
Come mealtime there was no beans on my plate.
I never asked for anything again before mealtime; no matter how hungry I was (very often).
 
NorthBrit said:
Heck NO!!!

(I may have told this story before)

My grandmother was making the evening meal. In the meal was baked beans.
It wasn't mealtime, but I was hungry. "Grandma can I have my beans now?"
"If you have them now there will be none for you later," she replied.
She gave me a tiny portion of beans which I ate in two (small) spoonsful. ('Grandma has saved me some beans,' I thought.)
Come mealtime there was no beans on my plate.
I never asked for anything again before mealtime; no matter how hungry I was (very often).
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Yepper. So it was all BS. Come to think of it, we never starved in Poland. It was tough from what i heard after the war, but in later years when everything stabilized, we basically had all the necessary stuff. It's amazing how the governments can steer it's citizens when they have the information which normal citizens don't have.
 
logandsawman said:
Interesting trio. True, without the Russians helping, the war would have gone on much longer. Their territory was far too tempting for Hitler, and the results were to his undoing. Too bad Poland got tangled up in the negotiations and seems to have gotten the "short end of the stick".
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Poland didn't really got a short end of the stick. It was collaborated against from both sides of the border. Like wise it was to be divided even though it tried to keep peace with it's neighbors, especially Germany. Czechoslovakia was used by the British government to appease Germans, and obviously that didn't work, it only made Hitler more convinced of his superiority. Ultimately Stalin and Hitler didn't trust eachother, even though they signed the Molotov Pact, and it was a matter of time before everything would escalate into a total war.
 
KriegslokBR52 said:
Yepper. So it was all BS. Come to think of it, we never starved in Poland. It was tough from what i heard after the war, but in later years when everything stabilized, we basically had all the necessary stuff. It's amazing how the governments can steer it's citizens when they have the information which normal citizens don't have.
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True. I remember when after the war bananas were available in our local shop. Grandmother arriving home with a small bunch. That was in the early 1950s. It was the first time they were on sale; yet bananas were arriving in the U.K. from 1945.
 
KriegslokBR52 said:
Poland didn't really got a short end of the stick. It was collaborated against from both sides of the border. Like wise it was to be divided even though it tried to keep peace with it's neighbors, especially Germany. Czechoslovakia was used by the British government to appease Germans, and obviously that didn't work, it only made Hitler more convinced of his superiority. Ultimately Stalin and Hitler didn't trust eachother, even though they signed the Molotov Pact, and it was a matter of time before everything would escalate into a total war.
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I cannot claim to be an expert on Poland, but great Grandfather Plotnik (as in Plotnikov from Dostoesvky's "The Brothers Karamazov") came from Poland, and my grandmother and grandfather both spoke Polish in front of us when they didn't want us to understand.

They were frugal people which lived a humble life, and died leaving their children (not me) hundreds of thousands $. Their frugality came from, I believe, their upbringing. The history I learned was that Germany and Russia took much from Poland, and the strong Polish people persevered. This was evident in my grandparents story.

Dave LASM
 


logandsawman said:
I cannot claim to be an expert on Poland, but great Grandfather Plotnik (as in Plotnikov from Dostoesvky's "The Brothers Karamazov") came from Poland, and my grandmother and grandfather both spoke Polish in front of us when they didn't want us to understand.

They were frugal people which lived a humble life, and died leaving their children (not me) hundreds of thousands $. Their frugality came from, I believe, their upbringing. The history I learned was that Germany and Russia took much from Poland, and the strong Polish people persevered. This was evident in my grandparents story.

Dave LASM
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I've heard that a lot from second and third generation of Polish descendants; that their parents or grandparents didn't want to teach them their native language. That's too bad because a lot of history has been lost because of that. My grandma who raised me for the most part when i was a child growing up in Poland, shared some horror stories with me when Germans attacked and overran the country. She grew up in Warsaw and was a young woman by 1939. She was telling me how she would run sometimes through the streets with bullets whistling by, she didn't get hit. She had two younger brothers (both of them i knew as they were alive in 1980s). The younger brother was captured twice by German soldiers and he escaped both times. Second time him and several other males were led into a church. He run out as the Germans apparently didn't close the door and he ran right past the machine guns they were setting up to shoot up the church from the outside. Can't imagine the thoughts what ran inside his head, but he just sprinted without trying to look back. It's one thing when the enemy attacks and you have weapons to defend yourself, but a whole different ball game when you have no means to engage the enemy. A lot of people especially in the Eastern Europe went through this. My grandma would always wrap some small items, like money and hide them around the house. I guess that was the leftover behavior from the time when you never knew who would knock on the door at war time. I've heard about the so called "Silent generation" here in the States of men who would not talk about the war. That's too bad because they had the freedom to speak up and younger generations of Americans needed to hear about it, maybe the so called "sexual revolution" wouldn't take place and the society would be more supportive of family values. In postwar Poland people were forbidden to talk about Russian atrocities committed on Polish people. The whole topic of Russian invasion was not spoken about, only in secret. The focus on history was only on German invasion. It was only in recent years that younger Polish generation learned about places like Eastern Ukraine with Ukrainian people murdering Polish people before, during and after the war, or places like Katyń where Russian secret police shot several thousand polish soldiers to the back of the head.
 
Silent Generation

People in wartime saw (and probably did) things they wished they never. Scars to the mind that never leave. To talk about it would bring it all back when in fact they want to forget. They wonder why they still live whilst their comrades fell next to them. Therefore they stay silent. Stay silent and hope Peace remains.

Thank them and love them. They are not to be blamed for the actions of future generations.

Future generations are like children. You can tell them right from wrong. Teach them good manners etc.. Once they leave the house they choose their path in life whether you like it or not.
 
NorthBrit said:
Silent Generation

People in wartime saw (and probably did) things they wished they never. Scars to the mind that never leave. To talk about it would bring it all back when in fact they want to forget. They wonder why they still live whilst their comrades fell next to them. Therefore they stay silent. Stay silent and hope Peace remains.

Thank them and love them. They are not to be blamed for the actions of future generations.

Future generations are like children. You can tell them right from wrong. Teach them good manners etc.. Once they leave the house they choose their path in life whether you like it or not.
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You've got a point...but there is a saying; "Those who ignore history, are bound to repeat it". I'm one of those who listened, no matter how bad it was. Most kids my age were sheltered, especially kids here in the US. Movies are full of violence, but the kids eyes and ears are covered from hearing reality, that's rather ironic considering the true nature of a man.
 
KriegslokBR52 said:
Katyń where Russian secret police shot several thousand polish soldiers to the back of the head.
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Nobody wanted to believe the Nazis when the Nazis found the mass graves. Stalin and the Soviets were quick to blame the Nazis for the Katyan Massacre and much of the world was happy to accept their bull... After Stalin's Great Purge how could anyone believe anything, Stalin said? Churchill knew who the true Stalin was, a lying mass murder, but his hands were tied. It is likely Stalin was responsible for more deaths than even Hitler. The difference was Stalin was mostly murdering his own citizens for political reasons. Most of Hitler's murders were out of pure madness and a lust for world domination. They were both evil.

Recently in 2021 Putin's Russia has downgraded the Katyan Memorial to a site of only regional importance. It doesn't fit in with Putin's admiration of the Soviet Union.

Evil is always with us; it is only even more deceptive in today's world.

My faith gives me peace. Evil people may fool the world, but they will not escape God's judgment.

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Never forget!
 
KriegslokBR52 said:
You've got a point...but there is a saying; "Those who ignore history, are bound to repeat it". I'm one of those who listened, no matter how bad it was. Most kids my age were sheltered, especially kids here in the US. Movies are full of violence, but the kids eyes and ears are covered from hearing reality, that's rather ironic considering the true nature of a man.
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That is true, but that is not the fault of the 'Silent Generation'. Later generations wish to deny such statements. Those seeking power take advantage through such denials and use to their advantage.
 
I learned truly little history in school, so much more from reading on my own.

Libraries are filled with history books and can be read for free. Reading about differing views and opinions helps us to get the truest account.

The Celts never fully developed a written language. That is why their history is vague and open to debate.
 


NorthBrit said:
Those seeking power take advantage through such denials and use to their advantage.
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Absolutely true!

Smudge617 said:
Until the fall of East Germany in 1990, German history between 1923 (Hitler's failed Putsch) and 1949 (the formation of East Germany) was not allowed to be taught in schools.
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And there we have a perfect example.

Politicians should not be telling educators what to teach. But it is happening, even today in some states in the US.
 
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