asking relatives questions from there army days

my wife is polish . her father now in his 80s fought in his home country of poland at the beginning and worked his way back there from england 1944 on......
hes a kind , great man did his bit , shot in the arm , got the t-shirt so to speak........
ive asked him questions over the years but he just will not speak about his army days .
obviously he has seen many awful things im sure during his service which i could not really begin to imagine and wouldnt want him to go through experiences that would cause him pain but......at the same time i think it is important that this knowledge should be somehow passed on so more of us realise just what a good life we have today .
i feel if his experiences are not carried on before the inevitable , something important will be lost with him..........any views on this ??????

[ 10. November 2003, 01:31 PM: Message edited by: hatch ]

 

and no he doesnt know i have an MP40 . he would be very upset..........

 

respect his decision not to talk and stop asking or bothering him. saving him from a possible pain of having to rememer terrible things is far more valuable as any experience he might have to share.

I'm sure even you have something in your life you don't want to talk and forget about, no matter how interesting this would be for others. But it's your's, not theirs.

just my 2c

 

Andy is correct leave it alone now ! sorry to be so blunt but if questions are being denied answers don't push it. I have come almost from every angle I can think of during vet interviews the past 35 years and from experience when they say no they mean no.

on another note, My good friend Helmuth has two days to live........and I am totally bummed and rather knumb. many of you have read my posts on his service on the Ost front over the years. Now it is time to leave this earth.......

Erich Brown

 

My grandfather was similar, he didn't talk to my father much about the war, he talked a little to my brother and me because we asked questions about things like 'did you ever use a sten?' or 'were you ever in France?' and he talked to my Mum because she was an army nurse and so they sort of had a point of reference. We naturally wanted to know a little about his career etc, in the end the way we found out was pretty much by accident, we were talking one day about life in general and asked Grandpa if he could write about his life. He did not have to show us whilst he was alive but when he died we found his memoirs which covered his whole life, including the war.

Basically whilst I agree with Andy that asking straight out questions about the war is going to be hurtful, how about suggesting that he writes a memoir, about his childhood and his life after the war and so on to clear up some of the questions about his life that you are bound to hve and so that you will have something to show your grandchildren and say 'this is your great grandfather'. He may feel inclined to write something down then, at the very least you will learn a fair deal about him and his family, at the best you may get some information about his war. Just my way of looking at it though...

 

no guys i may of phrashed the way i speak to my father in law wrong to you . im 31 so not a schoolkid and my wife liza is 34 (her polish parents had her late in life)i would never be so blunt as to ask him specific questions about the war , far to much respect for a wonderful man and his probably horrible experiences from that time . its just sometimes ur talking and it goes into that sort of area and he then starts to avoid it and that is that , end of subject and that to me is fine . what i was asking you guys is that i think its a shame that this isnt passed on in someways , i dont know???????.........
stefan you might have the answer some kind of memoirs maybe ?????

 

went and had a long fast drive so back to somewhat normal.........

yes Stefan brings up a good point. Hatch would your father in law be open to write his memories even if they are troubling so his great grand children can read his memories and of course not repeat what happened in ww 2 ? this is a good thought. Fortunately this is what my dying friend did last year and it formed a beautiful 3 inch thick book.

~E

 

yea erich maybe he would , maybe he has???? liza could ask him like u say to write down his memories for the grandchildren perhaps ..........many thanks everyone for input

 

hatch, whist I appreciate some memories of WWII are painful for those who keep them, such is the time that has elapsed that events have passed into history and today are being taught as such. Whether or not certain things should have happened, the fact is they did. There will always be those who want to know and those who need to know. In the absence of the facts, whatever version available will have to be taken and thereafter ‘educated guesses’.

It may be assumed next of kin will be entrusted with any such family history, but in reality not necessarily so and with good reason. For one thing there is generally a tendency to shield children from the horrific and while the ‘child’ will eventually become an adult, the innate sentiment persists. Some Veterans are of the opinion that what they went through was to try and ensure their descendants would not have to repeat their experiences and what was done was done of necessity and should be forgotten. Others do not want to tell their kin what they did or saw because they feel unhappy about how perception of them would possibly alter thereafter? If the child themselves have become a service person and have experiences of their own, it could change matters?

It’s impossible to give definitive criteria because people are different. Generally however, the story is probably more likely to be given to a ‘stranger’ and then someone who has experiences of their own.

No.9

 

had some great replys on here.....peoples different views on this . makes you see things in a different way and from other angles .
i spoke to liza about asking him to write his thoughts and memories , the first time ive ever mentioned it to her infact , but she said she wont as she is sure he wouldnt and for the first time she told me things he had told her years ago which were not pleasant . things that he doesnt need to be reminded of . all he needs now is the love of his 3 daughters and sons in laws........many thanks all for input......

 

If you still want answers and maybe just his war stories I suggest finding some other more amiable veterans and 'arranging' a meeting, like at a pub or something. Many veterans are far more willing to share their experiances with other veterans than someone who has not "been there." I speak from 25 years of service on this.

 

hello T A gardner thanks for reply m8 . im not really after gory war stories and wouldnt expect them from anyone who would not wish to share them .im just interested in peoples views and experiences on things i (and thankfully) will never experience . maybe because my life is so easy compared to what they went through and show my appreciation for what they did . as i feel on the whole with my generation and younger they are not appreciated as much as they should.......

 

My next door neighbor is polish and has developed a hobby for hating the Nazis.

He doesn't have any problems telling me about the war but it is obvious after a while that he hated the enemy with a passion and for what they did to his people in Warsaw, his home before the war.

I remember one particularily candid story where he was dropped in to occupied France as a British Para and had to work with the French resistance to steal some documents from a basement safe of a 5 storey building crawling with Germans.

His brief was to provide help get the French in and obtain the plans. Their brief (according to his CO) was to crack the safe. Nice and simple right? Wrong.

After making contact, the French had no idea what he was saying, and vice versa, futhermore, they had no knowledge of safecracking. In his frustration, he took out a satchel of explosives and blew the safe, the basement and the whole building to smithereens.

I remember him saying his fellow Paras, his CO and the French were quite animated about not getting the plans but his attitude was:
"If I can't get this safe open, no one is going to have those plans!"
I also remember him smiling from ear to ear as he described the bodies flying up into the air and that there were German limbs everywhere afterwards.

 

If people don't want to talk about it, well you can't make them. Maybe they didn't do some things that we wouldn't call 'good' nowadays and they are afraid of what we'll think of them or regret what they did so much that they want to forget. At least I think that's my grandfather's case. It is very hard for me to get him to tell me detailed stories about his experiences and in many cases, he has avoided the main point or lied. Fortunately he carried a diary during the war and I've sneaked some times and read some bits - I know it's bad, but you understand my curiosity, right? - and found out several things that convinced me why he doesn't want to talk about the war.

It's a very hard subject...

 

hello everyone.. this is my first post <fanfare>.. i've always read that the first night in a new forum you should beat a man so people know not to mess with you.. or ws that prison? anyway.. its nice to be here.
i wanted to relate what my relatives did in the war.. as its a source of considerable family pride..
my maternal grandfather was an airplane mechanic on the USS Lexington. He was on the ship when it was sunk by the japanese at the battle of the coral sea. he never talked about it until i came around with that ignorance of tact with which children are blessed. he spoke of manning an anti-aircraft gun during the attack and being wounded when a bomb went off close-by. after they abandoned ship they drifted for hours in the shark infested sea.
my paternal grandpa was stationed in suffolk. he was a bombardier in a B-17. he was shot down and taken prisoner by the germans.
my great uncle was a member of the 1st marine division. he was killed on peleliu in the south pacific.
whatever side they were one.. axis or allied.. i believe that all the combatants of WW2 or indeed any war, deserve the utmost respect for seeign the world through these convulsions of history. i hope that made sense to somebody other than me.. xxx

 

It does, Oliphaunt the Portlandian. Thanks for sharing and welcome to these forums. I can very much understand the pride in your family about your grandfathers efforts in the war. I come from a distinct non-military family (try and find a distinct military family in Holland anyway and I will buy you a beer...) and have only heard (war)stories about surviving the German occupation. Several familymembers were forced into the ArbeitsEinsatz, non-military work force, some say slave laborers, in the German reich.

Do you by any chance know what Bomb Group your 'Bombardier' grandpa was in or on which date he was shot down??

 

Yes, Welcome Oliphaunt,

and thanx for sharing!

Yes, I agree as well that some things better be left under the rock they are. My two uncles were fighting behind the enemy lines in WW2 and I have a feeling that they did "awful" things and they never shared a thing really.

Then again as I have been to Finnish Waffen-SS meetings it´s been the group feeling that has brought up some joyful memories during the war as well as horrible ones that otherwise would not be heard. Losing a dear comerade, fighting in the cold somewhere behind God´s back for a reason no-one anymore understands...I think the guys thought I was a newspaper man or something as they saw my interest and told me that I should never write about those things...

 

I find it very sad how there are so many if not most people with first hand experiences of WW2 who never want the subject raised. The next generations will never really understand what their family members and friends etc went through and what it means to go to war.

I respect veteran's right to privacy but with most people now dead with WW1 experience, much knowledge is lost of that war, and in the not too distant future it will be the same about WW2. I can only guess at the pain war causes people, things they saw, did or didn't do, anger at the enemy and/or anger at their own governments or others for what happened to them, guilt perhaps for surviving, etc. I

ts a pity though that there isn't some place where diaries, memoires or letters can be kept of more general experiences of war other than the most famous which are obviously kept in archives and museums - or perhaps there is such a place, perhaps where such memories can be left.

 

My old man's spoken more about his experiences in North Africa and Italy these last few years than any other time I can remember.
Maybe he knows we're probably more interested in listening now.
Regards,
Gordon

 

I think Historian hit upon something-with the new WWII movies that have come out the last few years, no matter what your opinion of them, they have spawned interest with the public in general. Plus, over the years, some of the harsher memories have faded, or at least dulled a bit.

As one who has spent many a year contacting and interviewing veterans, I too run into this problem. While I regret the fact that many vets refuse to mention anything, I also have to respect their answer. No is no, and if they don't want to speak of it, don't push.

There have been some good points brought up-the memoir idea for one.

Another is taking a round about approach. You knew he was in the military. Ask a general question for a starter, say something about the uniform. "Wow, a wool uniform in the summer must have been hot" or the like. As odd as it sounds, that leads to other topics.

And, anonymity helps. Most of the veterans I contact or talk with at displays do not know me, and I don't know them, but once we get talking they bring things up that have been kept from family. More then once I've had family members come back to me at a display and tell me that was the first time they'd heard a particular story.

But, above all, respect the decision to communicate or not.

Wm.T.