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In reply to the discussion: I LOST it with my doctor today. [View all]paleotn
(17,911 posts)He could set the young doc straight in record time. Dad was one of the most happy go lucky people I've ever known, except when it came to nazis and the holocaust. Holocaust denial and nazis in Skokie ILL turned him white hot with anger. He saw Buchenwald hours after it was liberated. I cannot even imagine the horrors that young 20 something saw and he never talked about it much until he was very old. I guess the evil was so far away by that time he could open up just a bit. He did say that the lives of those SS SOBs weren't worth a plug nickle after that day. In April of '45 they sometimes just didn't take prisoners. He wasn't proud of the reprisals and there were a few when officers weren't around. Though he wasn't ashamed at all about the SS sniper they cornered in a barn. The war was damn near over....and everybody knew it...so he got what was coming to him. It did bring home for a young Tennessee farm boy exactly why they were there. My uncle was further south and saw Dachau. Neither were particularly "German friendly" for the entirety of their lives.