Evgeny S
KMZ rules!
ruben said:
Ruben, I can (and I'd like to) say the same words to you.
Best Regards, Evgeny.
R
ruben
Guest
nzeeman said:
Dear comrade nzeeman,
Your personal family testimony could be stronger than a thousand theories if you could just detail what happened to your family. In case you feel you don't know how to do it better, take for example comrade's Jesko testimony about his family.
I would like to hear you very much on this.
R
ruben
Guest
Perhaps I know what is a great camera and what is a poorly performing camera.
But what is a Great Nation and what is a small one ? What is the rule measuring that ? Who is the judge ? Where is the trial ?
If we are to celebrate something at Victory Day, it is above all the defeat of a very cultural enlightened man and his political regime (who even during WW2 went daily to the Berlin opera) who thought to know the rules and became measurer, judge and executioner, leaving his own country in shambles and death, as well as much of the world.
If we are to remember something it is the monstruous price Humanity had to pay to achieve such a Victory.
Am I wrong ?
Cheers,
Ruben
But what is a Great Nation and what is a small one ? What is the rule measuring that ? Who is the judge ? Where is the trial ?
If we are to celebrate something at Victory Day, it is above all the defeat of a very cultural enlightened man and his political regime (who even during WW2 went daily to the Berlin opera) who thought to know the rules and became measurer, judge and executioner, leaving his own country in shambles and death, as well as much of the world.
If we are to remember something it is the monstruous price Humanity had to pay to achieve such a Victory.
Am I wrong ?
Cheers,
Ruben
Last edited by a moderator:
Fedzilla_Bob
man with cat
Jocko said:
Well said Ian.
Thanks Evgeny for reminding me of Rodchenko. As a young man in the '70s I really admired his work as a graphic artist, artist and photographer.
nzeeman
Well-known
ruben said:
here's the story - before wwii my german grandpa was a rich man who had shoe shops in various countries. he didnt care about the war but since he was in yugoslavia he knew one day he will have to decide which side he will support - german or yugoslavian. he decided to go to his friends in germany and to work in some factory and to avoid going to army. he did that - and he succeded.
in 1945 when russians came to germany they started to kill a lot of civilians and when they came to house of my grandpa's friends, my grandpa came out and started talking in serbian not to kill his friends because they helped him and that he is from serbia their brotherly nation. sso they didnt kill anyone from that house. than than they offred him to stay in germany because in serbia he will be killed by communists. he said "why would they kill me - i did nothing. i wasnt in army. they are not interested in me." so he went back to yugoslavia. when he came here his serbian and jew friends told him to hide in their houses for some time because commies will kill him. he said again that they have no reason for that. so one day they came to his house and arrested him. he was in jail for two months and than all germans disappeared from jail and my grandma never heard a word about him.also they took all houses they had (3 houses) and all land they had and gave them one flat with 3 rooms. 2-3 years after war was very hard for all non-commmunists here. they forbidded all political parties and tortured people who were for king or for other parties.
My other grandpa was officer before wwii and after he came back from concentration camp they offered him to become officer in communists army. he didnt want to do that because he sweared to be officer of king and not of a communists state. he never joined communist party so he till the end of his life he had to work bad job even if he had faculty diploma which was rare in that time. but you had to be in comm party to get good job.
someone here said that we cant mix yugoslavia ith other east states - it is true that life here was good in 70s and 80s but thats ainly because of credits that our president took from west countries. but all that money commies stealed and they didnt make anything for country. they were just using not to lose their power. and when time came to pay debts everything fall apart because we didnt have industry- so we didnt have money.
war in yugoslavia didnt start because someone wanted independent states. no its because nationalism starts when country have no money. and when there is no money only way to remain on power is to talk people about something else. so everybody started to talk how their nation is great and how they will live good and have a lot of money when they become independent. and everybody believed.
thats the reason for all wars as i said before.
my family was always against wars and no member of my family went to any of these wars because we think thats stupid. i wouldnt fight even if enemy come to my home. i would just leave it to them or go to their prison or i would just get killed but i think i would never kill anyone. and i think that is the way for all of us to think.
nzeeman
Well-known
fgianni said:
http://www.richard-seaman.com/Aircraft/Museums/Hendon/GermanWw2/index.html
and between wwi and wwii germans were forbidden to make weapons. other countries decided that because of wwi. and even then UK was selling their engines for german army planes.
if you look history a bit you will see that UK was always one of dirtiest nations if we talk about politics. they made so many evil things and never paid for them. they were pushing all countries to come in war against germany because they knew that they are to weak for germany. when germany took czech they didnt move a finger and when they took poland they went to war in germany even if germany didnt attack them. so technically UK started war in western front. yugoslavia had a pact with germany not to enter the war and to give german troops passae through our land. but UK made a deal with their political friends here and they started demonstrations against pact, so pact failed and germany attacked us. we wouldnt go to war if UK didnt do stuff like that. we would be like swiss in wwii. but lets stop to talk about war now.
i just wish peace for all of us.
and now lets get back to photography.
Last edited:
R
ruben
Guest
nzeeman said:
Dear nzeeman,
While it seems to me I have got your political viewpoint, I am not sure I got a clear understanding regarding what happened to your German grandfather. So I will break down to small pieces the fewer things you say, and I will gladly wait for you to correct me:
a) Your German grandpa was a German born man, carrying a German passport, who happened by chance to live in Yugoslavia. I say "by chance" meaning with no real roots in Yugoslavia.
b) Sometime before Hitler's army entered Checkoeslovakia, formally opening WW2,
your German grandpa was aware, like many others, about the possibilty of War, and took side on behalf of the Nazi regime. I say on behalf of the Nazi regime, because comrade's Jesko testimony about his Grandpa makes cristal clear that loyality to Germany was not equal to loyality to Nazism. Jesko's Grandpa claimed to be loyal to Germany by opposing in his own way the Nazi regime. Your grandpa, nzeeman, sided with the Nazi regime, against Yugoslavia.
c) Your grandpa avoided enlisting in the German army. The nature of your grandpa help to the Nazi regime was not military whatsoever, but just manufacturing shoes. That was the purpose of his come back to Germany.
d) When the Allies entered Germany by 1945, your grandpa was living at the East side of Germany, occupied by the Red Army. The Red Army started to look after Nazi collaborationists and arrived to your grandpa home too. Then, they showed great care in listening to him, accepting his explanation about his Yugoslavian loyalty, and even recommended him to stay in Germany for his good safety, since they happened to knew that their fellow Yugoslavian Communists are massacring everything around.
e) For very unclear reasons your grandpa decided to come back to Yugoslavia, where his old Yugoslavian and Jewish friends warned him again, he may be suspected and killed.
f) Finnally, he was arrested, his home and lands confiscated, and sent to prison. At that prison some day, all German nationals dissapeared, without trial.
I will gladly accept you correcting my mistakes.
Friendly,
Ruben
nzeeman
Well-known
a) my grandpa's family were germans who lived in yugoslavia for generations
b)c)before war he had shoe shops iin many places, and when war started he escaped to his friends in germany and started to work in some factory( not a shoe or army one)
d) russians came to every house with civilians and get their revenge. since he lived in yugoslavia which is russia friendly country and russian and serbian are pretty similar he told them he is their friend from yugoslavia and survived
e) since he was born and he had houses in yugoslavia he wanted to go back in them
f) ecommies confiscated all rich men properties and killed almost all gemans and non-communist in few years after wwii
i hope i that explained something
b)c)before war he had shoe shops iin many places, and when war started he escaped to his friends in germany and started to work in some factory( not a shoe or army one)
d) russians came to every house with civilians and get their revenge. since he lived in yugoslavia which is russia friendly country and russian and serbian are pretty similar he told them he is their friend from yugoslavia and survived
e) since he was born and he had houses in yugoslavia he wanted to go back in them
f) ecommies confiscated all rich men properties and killed almost all gemans and non-communist in few years after wwii
i hope i that explained something
pangkievrange
Established
In the commie system, the rich should be either reformed or terminated. I read a book about the suffering of german people after WW II. After the war ended, the local german ethnic were forced to move to germany. During that process, a lot of violence (killing, raping) happend (commie or none-commie). Things were not good either in germany itself. Life was tough. Women could have sex with men in exchange for bread. A chocclate bar or a can of cornned beef would be like a gift from the heavan. The womanhood dropped to the lowest point in the German history. In the USSR-occupied Germany, raping occurred very often. In the western power controlled area, prostitution was rampant. Some kind of sex service to the American G.I. The soviet troop raped when they came along. People in romania, hungary, Czech and bulgary suffered much more under the commies' rule.
drmatthes
Zeiss Addict
Ok folks,
to settle down things a bit:
If you like to understand how people thought these days, it might be worthwile to take into consideration that Germany had already lost a war some 20 years ago when the second big war was started by themselves. Upon Germans there was imposed the guilt and debt, owing to the first war (which, generally speaking, had been a war of colonial powers against colonial powers). Other colonial powers, like the British and the French, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Italy, somehow already felt that their time had come when they were urged into the second war. Others, like Spain and Portugal, simply kept out of it, only to loose their colonies in the 1970s.
Germans, in general, were quite fond of somebody telling them a great future of power, strengh and economic wealth was lying in front of them only to be picked up by those who would be willing to do so. Unfortunately, this somebody was called Hitler, and almost nobody cared about the side-effects of that very pill they were about to swallow. Nobody read the receipt properly. Grandpa did, he read "Mein Kampf" and was quite determined, from 1932 on, that a big mistake was about to be made. But the Nazis proved to be very successful in their heyday. And who cares about side effects when the pill seems to be a cure? So people were sent off to be settlers wherever the Nazis gained influence or power, the Protektorat Boehmen & Maehren (Tchechoslovakia), Yugoslavia, later the General Gouvernement (Poland), the Ukraine, the Baltic States, and so on. Meanwhile, dictatorship was so well organized and advanced that it meant to risk your life to oppose frankly and in the public. So it was a deathly mixture of ignorance, belief and, of course, fierce mischief, that brought about the unspeakable atrocities and made people join in and accept or even support them. The killing of some thousands, later millions of people seemed like the side-effect of war, and it was the insidious and deceitful intention of the Nazis to let the killings happen in the penumbra of war, only to make ordinary Germans intimidated - and caring for their own lives, first place.
A typical answer came from my father, a Nazi party member since 1932, when, some 25 years ago, we saw "Holocaust", an American TV series, together. "Did you know about these things?" I asked. - "Well, I didn't", he replied, "but I must admit I could have known if I had wanted to."
Guys and Gals, there is no use counting up against one another what Nazis and Commies or Displaced Persons or Allied Forces or who-so-ever has commited - or omitted to do - in those days.
Whoever has put guilt on himself, whoever has suffered (or both, which, in those days, could well happen to the same person), try and find peace in something, your family, your children and grand-children, your later achievements, whatever.
There are only three big mistakes that can be made about this:
(1) Thinking that your family was perfect and was the only one that suffered,
(2) Thinking that the little bit of opposition that came from your family would make up for the great crimes committed,
(3) Thinking that forgetting about all of that stuff might help for the rest of one's life.
I find it ever so moving when people from the U-boats or Air Forces from both sides join in mourning and remembrance, when trees ar planted in the "Walk of the Righteous" in Israel
and when we - as their offspring - prove that we have learned something, to respect others as human beings, and not let ourselves be forced into being enemies by a government.
Jesko
to settle down things a bit:
If you like to understand how people thought these days, it might be worthwile to take into consideration that Germany had already lost a war some 20 years ago when the second big war was started by themselves. Upon Germans there was imposed the guilt and debt, owing to the first war (which, generally speaking, had been a war of colonial powers against colonial powers). Other colonial powers, like the British and the French, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Italy, somehow already felt that their time had come when they were urged into the second war. Others, like Spain and Portugal, simply kept out of it, only to loose their colonies in the 1970s.
Germans, in general, were quite fond of somebody telling them a great future of power, strengh and economic wealth was lying in front of them only to be picked up by those who would be willing to do so. Unfortunately, this somebody was called Hitler, and almost nobody cared about the side-effects of that very pill they were about to swallow. Nobody read the receipt properly. Grandpa did, he read "Mein Kampf" and was quite determined, from 1932 on, that a big mistake was about to be made. But the Nazis proved to be very successful in their heyday. And who cares about side effects when the pill seems to be a cure? So people were sent off to be settlers wherever the Nazis gained influence or power, the Protektorat Boehmen & Maehren (Tchechoslovakia), Yugoslavia, later the General Gouvernement (Poland), the Ukraine, the Baltic States, and so on. Meanwhile, dictatorship was so well organized and advanced that it meant to risk your life to oppose frankly and in the public. So it was a deathly mixture of ignorance, belief and, of course, fierce mischief, that brought about the unspeakable atrocities and made people join in and accept or even support them. The killing of some thousands, later millions of people seemed like the side-effect of war, and it was the insidious and deceitful intention of the Nazis to let the killings happen in the penumbra of war, only to make ordinary Germans intimidated - and caring for their own lives, first place.
A typical answer came from my father, a Nazi party member since 1932, when, some 25 years ago, we saw "Holocaust", an American TV series, together. "Did you know about these things?" I asked. - "Well, I didn't", he replied, "but I must admit I could have known if I had wanted to."
Guys and Gals, there is no use counting up against one another what Nazis and Commies or Displaced Persons or Allied Forces or who-so-ever has commited - or omitted to do - in those days.
Whoever has put guilt on himself, whoever has suffered (or both, which, in those days, could well happen to the same person), try and find peace in something, your family, your children and grand-children, your later achievements, whatever.
There are only three big mistakes that can be made about this:
(1) Thinking that your family was perfect and was the only one that suffered,
(2) Thinking that the little bit of opposition that came from your family would make up for the great crimes committed,
(3) Thinking that forgetting about all of that stuff might help for the rest of one's life.
I find it ever so moving when people from the U-boats or Air Forces from both sides join in mourning and remembrance, when trees ar planted in the "Walk of the Righteous" in Israel
and when we - as their offspring - prove that we have learned something, to respect others as human beings, and not let ourselves be forced into being enemies by a government.
Jesko
R
ruben
Guest
drmatthes said:
One day at my twenties, I asked my father a similar question regarding the miserable fate Israel imposed on the Palestinian people, and I got a similar evasive answer.
To think of my father being a supporter of an ethnical cleansing was too much for me then.
But he was.
"these things", as you say comrade Jesko, were nothing less than a multi-million butchery and the systematic purposed genocide of six million human beings among them, selected by religion. Not you nor your generation are to be held responsible for what the Nazis did. You are not guilty of nothing. The same I can say about myself and my generation, with proportions kept in account.
But I cannot say the same about my own father. Although living overseas my father and his generation were responsible of the Palestinian tragedy. My father was responsible of looking aside while a monstruous crime was commited by his own political movement.
The question before you and me, destiny has cruelly left on our doorstep, is wether we too are going to look aside when looking at our fathers. I think that if we are going to look aside, we will have to look aside too in front of our own mirror. We will have to look aside to our own souls, because under a heavy test of life we have failed to distinguish between good and evil.
As a matter of fact, failure to distinguish between good and evil happens under adverse circumstances, and is the begining of every crime. As a matter of criminology, people are held responsible for this failure when translated to acts.
And that exactly is what started going wrong in Germany between the two wars, and what your great grandpa managed so well to stand up to.
What a grandpa you had !
Cheers,
Ruben
Last edited by a moderator: