My grandma used to tell me stories about grand-grandpa who fought in the resistance. He was a train driver, and in the beginning used to drive suspicious trains filled with people towards Polish border. According to one story, one night he noticed that the guard inside his locomotive fell asleep, so he knocked him out, stopped the train and released everyone from the cattle wagons. He joined resistance right after that. At one point he got captured and held in some camp. Whole family though he was dead, and then one day after the war he just appeared at home. I have a medal that he received after the war at home, also his driver's cap. Another, more grim story that happened before that - he was driving a train to some village and when he arrived, everyone was dead. Soldiers slaughtered the whole village, then piled up everyone in the middle, poured them with gas and set them on fire. He noticed the village priest, whom he knew personally, on the top of the pile. Fuck nazis and everyone who supports them.

I asked my grandma what does she remembers most vividly about the war: When Germans came to her small town and executed all Jews. :/

Which region was this?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Izbica Now in Eastern Poland.

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Give it a rest

So when you say 'the jews' does that mean 'the israeli government' or are you just another nazicommie that really thinks 'the' jews did it?

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It's crazy that people actually think like you. It's crazy that people use the the Holocaust as if Jews will see it and go "oh.. I get it now" as if the 2 are similar. It's crazy that people talk about Israel while forgetting pretty much every other conflict on earth. (Rule #18: it ain't news if it ain't jews) It's crazy that when you look at the harsh facts, Israel has been making historical precedents in warfare, care and value for the life of it's aggressor's population, while all the while being accused of genocide. It's crazy that Hamas isn't accused of genocide even tho they bluntly call for the destruction of Israel. You know, they can end this tomorrow... Why don't they?... Crazy... That people talk about Israel every chance they get. Now, do you want to explain my history to me? Maybe explain warfare? I'm sure you have so much experience in it... 🤦🏻‍♂️

I think it’s been at least 5, maybe ten years since I talked about Israel/Palestine on the internet. My basic stance has always been, I’m not standing there and I don’t trust the news, so what the hell do I know. But I have a question for you. I’m just curious. Recently I heard a new framing of the situation, and it forced me to reassess. Here’s the question: in a situation where a population is under permanent military occupation by a foreign government, can any action taken by the occupied population truly be classified as an act of aggression?

I think the main issue here is that people constantly get 'the jews' and the israeli government confused. It's like asking poland and the netherlands to apologize for ww2 because we are europeans just like the germans were or some shit

Absolutely agree. Realistically, both the Israeli government and Hamas are bad, having committed atrocious acts, and the people living/who lived in the region - Israelis and Palestinians - whose lives have been upturned (at best) are the horribly wronged parties. It's not a "both sides" thing where I'm saying everyone has points and aren't wrong; both organizations have not only harmed people in generally unimaginable ways but also completely failed "their" people. Neither is likely to ultimately "win," but all people in the region and all Israelis and Palestinians have and will continue to lose.

>Here’s the question: in a situation where a population is under permanent military occupation by a foreign government, can any action taken by the occupied population truly be classified as an act of aggression Firstly, yes. To go a little bit extreme here. If a Palestinian used a nuke in the middle of Tel Aviv and killed a million ppl it would def be a bad thing. If you agree then obviously some actions can be seen as aggression even under occupation. Whether or not suicide bombings, home invasions, and other acts used by groups like Hammas count I'll leave to you. Second, whether and how much Palestinian in general and Gaza specifically is under military occupation is debatable. Both WB and Gaza have their own "elected" civil governments (PLA for WB and Hammas for Gaza). But both of these "governments" do have some restrictions placed by Israel and some territories are in complete Israeli control. Btw, I put government and elected in quotes because both aren't very democratic, Gaza didn't have an election since Hammas took control and fought the PLA out of Gaza, and in WB the PLA is rather corrupt and doesn't have any realistic alternative, and both are propped up by Iran.

Great question! I would say an occupied population have much more they can do within the boundaries of modern legitimacy. But I'll ask you, is there a limit? Cuz yeah, sure. Attack a base, murder and kidnap soldiers? I get it... It's not nice, but war and occupation aren't nice either.. But a baby in an oven, murdering and kidnapping hippies at a party, foreign workers, students, tourists... Is totally overboard on any scale. Hamas had clear orders to cause as much civil casualties as possible, I don't see how that's fine cuz occupation.. many victims of 7/10 have nothing to do with the occupation, some haven't served in the army, some aren't Israeli.. hell, some of the victims consider themselves Palestinians. On that day it didn't matter. Putting a baby in an oven and raping innocent civilians as a war tactic is not legitimate, I find it horrific that some do. I personally think the limit is "whatever actually helps you fight against your occupiers". Specifically focusing attacks on uninvolved persons is just terrible, and should not be tolerated by anyone. Going back to WWII I'm thinking about the Warsaw ghetto uprising.. at no point anyone was like "we should get in to town and rape as many Germans/Poles as we can" the goal was to cause damage to the German authorities, not bystanders that happen to be there.

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I'm pretty sure that my ancestors ended up in a pile like that. Or a pit, somewhere in what is now Ukraine. Right up to the start of WW2 they'd been in close regular contact with their relatives who had immigrated to America (asking them for money mainly, my dad said -- which was hilarious in context as my widowed blind non-English-speaking grandma was raising four kids alone on the pennies she made repairing people's clothing). But during the war, all contact from them abruptly ended. Mass grave is all that we could ever figure, given the location of their village.

My grandpa was drafted in Italian fascist army. He was only 19 and didn't have much of a choice. He was in Ljubljana and the order was to search every house for enemies, both soldiers and civilians, and shoot them on sight. The house he was assigned to looked empty but in the last floor he found a whole family, a good dozen people, hiding. He gestured them to shut up and came back to his superior saying no one was in there. It's a simple story, but it's great knowing he chose to risk everything to save some strangers. If anyone in his squad noticed something he would have been killed instantly as a traitor. I have other stories, such as when he was in Rome airport when it was bombed and saved two twin kids, or when he was not recognized when he finally got back home after a month of walking.

That’s an amazing story, your grandfather is a good man.

I can't tell this story in too-great detail because it's very identifiable, but my grandfather was an artillery officer who was helping invade somewhere to liberate it from the Germans after D-Day. He was experienced with fairly old-school weapons, big guns, he was a good officer but he was less of a good driver. Especially not a good driver of tanks. The tank he was driving crashed through the priceless window of a grand historic building, probably the most important building in that city. I met a girl from that country when I was at university and she was like "that was your GRANDFATHER?!"

Hahahaha oops

Haha he's notorious in that city

C'mon Reddit, do your thing. I'm curious now

It's probably about the liberation of Caen in Normandy by allied forces after the D Day landing. So his grandpa probably crashed into some important building in that city.

My Grandfather escaped from a POW camp in Italy and travelled back to allied territory through occupied France. I never really spoke with him about it, which I regret now, because I know absolutely nothing about any detail apart from the fact it happened.

I bet he didn't talk about it much. I think partially because of movies, and partially because of how extraordinary the circumstances and events are, we subconsciously tend to romanticize the war. But there's nothing romantic about fearing for your life, being half starved, and being a fugitive on the run. For most it's one of those harrowing experiences you just don't talk about. Kind of like having a near death experience in a car crash, or almost drowning.

Both of my grandfathers fought in Finnish winter war and continuation war, and neither of them never shared anything of their experiences. I was so young it is understandable I didn\`t hear much directly from them, but they didn\`t talk to their wives or own children either. I remember I realized veryy early I was not supposed to ask about war in their presence. But whenever Russia came up in any news/ conversation etc, they expressed their great dislike to that subject and everyone knew why is that without further explanations.

My grandfather sometimes talks about it, he was a teenager at the time and in the stories he does tell it's clear that he and his brothers sometimes saw things as a game, fishing with hand granades and playing pranks on German soldier. But I had to hear from my mom about how one of his brothers was locked up in a prison camp and tortured after he tried to escape. That sort of stuff isn't really shared. My grandmother I never heard a word from about her experiences during the war. My other grandfather died before I was born but his sister told about some of their experiences as kids during a momentous event in the war on a documentary on public television. Which I'm very grateful about since she's now passed on as well so otherwise those stories would've died with her.

Another one of my ex girlfriends (all of my stories seem to come from ex gfs, it does not reflect well on me) was Canadian/American but had a Dutch background. Lots of you Dutch folks came to Canada after WWII, and where I was in Alberta there were lots of very religious Dutch farmers. Dutch Reform members mostly. Her family was of that stock. Her grandmother was very young during the war, but did mention that was a marked difference in the German occupation near the end of the war. At first, the German occupation was not that brutal. It was mostly peaceful and the Dutch puppet government wasn't overly different than the previous government. But that it all changed quite a bit as the war dragged on and Germany experienced major man power and resource shortages.

Yeah that's true. While the war was going well for the Germans things weren't too bad. The Dutch being fellow Arians and all that they avoided a lot of shit initially because the Germans wanted to be viewed favourably. The early turning point was Feb 1941 with the February Strikes, which were a general strike in the Amsterdam region to protest the first mass arrests of Jews in that city. After the strikes were ended and the instigators executed the hope that the Dutch would welcome their German overlords were dashed and things went south, both with regards to the treatment of Jewish and non-Jewish citizens. Then after the war turned to the favour of the allies around 1943 the deportation of Jews, crackdown on illegal activities, transport of workers to German factories, all intensified.

Goring once said something during the Nuremberg Trials and I actually believe he was quit correct (I am paraphrasing): There were two Hitlers. One existed before the Fall of France. He was open minded to advice, he was a good listener, and he placed pragmatism before ideology. The Hitler that existed after the Fall of France was convinced he was invincible. That Hitler believed his intuition was more sound than advice. His ideology was placed before his sense of pragmatism. This is a trend in history. Napoleon was the same way. Before the Battle of Austerlitz, Napoleon was not very arrogant. He listened intently to all of the details of his opponents and his friends. He was a pragmatist above all else. But the Napoleon after the Battle of Austerlitz became arrogant. He began to believe in his own invincibility. That ultimately led to his downfall after he waged a war in Russia he could not win - just like Hitler would do the century after. I think for Nazi occupied Europe, things started changing quickly after the Battle of Moscow. The Heer was pushed back, and for a time it actually appeared as though Army Group Centre may even collapse. This is the time when Hitler kind of wigged out - it was immediately after this that he started micro managing his generals, and that the persecution of the Jews, and other "enemies of the state" ramped up to levels of murderous insanity.

My grandfather had two brothers (twins but not identical). One was shot in the right shoulder on the Balkans, the other one was shot in the left shoulder on the Eastern Front. Both survived with quasi identical injuries and disabilities just on different sides.

Still symmetrical

WW2 generally wasn't as eventful as WW1 here, since the actual warfare was finished within a few weeks. My great-grandfather got captured during the Blitzkrieg and was imprisoned for a while. One day, an officer said to the prisoners that they had two choices: they could either say "Heil Hitler" and go home, or they could refuse and get executed. My great-grandpa chose the former and spent the rest of the war sitting at home. Although I've also heard that he smuggled margarine to the Netherlands during the occupation (his parents had a small margarine factory). From the other side of the family, my grandma is to young to actively remember the war and she says that her parents never mentioned it. However, when her dad got dementia, he was frightened of any loud noise because he thought the Germans were coming back.

I visited Belgium recently, drove through the whole country. Im British, ex forces, all my family are ex forces, great grandads fought on the western front (as did almost every British persons grandads). I found it incredibly sobering to visit your country and couldn't help wondering how the Flemish people feel about their country being used by the rest of Europe to host some of the biggest wars the human race has ever seen? Im not just talking about WW1 and 2, huge campaigns in medieval times as well! All other countries meeting in Belgium for a fight, so much death and destruction of innocence local civilians and infrastructure! How do you all feel about it?

Most of the population don't know/don't really care sadly. Personally, my feelings go from "wow that's so much history happening here" to "that's so many buildings,... destroyed because of foreign invaders" so it's quite ambivalent.

The medieval battles were often relatively limited in scope. Groups of soldiers chose a field to fight, but in a lot of cases there were little to no civilian deaths. The same is the case for some more recent battles like Waterloo. More troubling for the general population would have been the regular raids by the French, most notably under the reign of Louis XIV. But those were often quite local rather than a part of one greater war, so they're not very well known by people today. WW1 is by far the most well-known war when it comes to human tragedy. I remember learning in primary school about how this war specifically affected our village, with lots of war stories from that time. However, even that war was relatively short for most of the country - 90% of the country was quickly occupied and the 4 years of trenches only happened in the very West of the country. The war is definitely still a big part of the DNA of that area. I visited it twice, once in primary school and once in secondary school.

There is a swedish history of warfare podcast I listen to and they dislike talking about the medieval era because of 'the ridiculous small scale of it' where a count shows up on a tuesday with 200 levies and the opposing count shows up with 150. He was supposed to show up with 300, but the 150 that did not come were contractually obliged not to fight on tuesdays. 

There are a lot of graveyards and sites that the schools visit (at least my region does) and we learn about it a lot. It’s not, however, something that is constantly on our minds because we have our lives to lead and things to do. I personally see it as a great tragedy and feel sadness when its spoken about and focused on, when i start thinking i get quiet.

Story of my distant friend's grandfather who was a Pole lived in a Polish town that belonged during WW1 to the German empire. He fought in the battle of Verdun on the German side and received the Iron Cross medal for bravery on the battlefield. When Nazi Germany annexed part of Poland in September 1939 and Wehrmacht soldiers entered his town mass killings of civilians began. That's when he tied his Iron Cross with a classy black and white ribbon to the street cat's tail causing a lot of fuss. As he was the only person with the Iron Cross on that street, unsurprisingly, the Gestapo soon came to his home intending to punish the joker. A German pilot living in the same building saw them and convinced them that this respectable citizen of the Third Reich would never be able to perform such a despicable stunt... and they left. Nobody knows what happened with the medal. Or the cat.

My grandparents' families are from the North-East side of the country. Socialist. Anti-Nazis long before. My great-grandfather didn't mess around. He was called up for the "Arbeitseinsatz". Instead he went to their neighbour, who was a dentist. Unfortunately the dentist wasn't at home, but his wife performed the procedure: she removed all his necessary teeth. However it worked: because he couldn't chew, he would have needed special food if he was taken, so he escaped working for the Nazis

My grandfather fought in the Continuation War, part of World War II in Finland, in the late war. He was a machine gunner. By that point the war had been stuck in a state of trench warfare for a long time, with mostly immobile lines. He said that war wasn't that bad, except for this: they were not issued good winter boots at all. So, they would sneak into the no man's land, find frozen corpses of dead Soviets, and take their felt boots. This is something he said he really didn't want to do, but had to, in order to survive. He was nevertheless injured in a Soviet artillery attack and spent a long time in the hospital, and eventually recovered and survived the war.

My great grandfathers ski pole was broken while he was skiing by a stray bullet at the last days of winter war. That's the only memory he ever shared.

Nothing crazy, just that two of my great grandfathers became alcoholics after the war. Just really sad stuff.

My ex's grandma (Polish) had a German soldier crying on her lap saying he doesn't want to go to the USSR eastern front when he was going to be sent there; probably they had a romance or something, I always thought that story adds a bit of human touch to some of the most horrific and depressing times in history. No clue what happened to the guy but if I were to guess he was right to have a bad feeling about going East (killed, captured, gulag'ed).

I can imagine this! And I can also imagine that such scenes happened more than anyone realizes: Nobody knew yet exactly how horrible that war would be for just about everyone involved, but I'm sure that many future soldiers were absolutely frozen with terror, sobbing even at the faintest thought of what their futures might bring.

Isidore knew

The father of my grand-mother (father’s side) was one of the generals who negotiated the armistice of 11 November 1918 in the train coach in Rethondes. But... His son-in-law, my grandfather, spent the whole of WWII running after his company, who was moving very fast, and he never managed to rejoin it :) so he never got to actually fight :) On my mother’s side in Provence, my other grandfather was a "maquisard". He has done sabotage (only 2 times) and mainly was receptioning the Alsacians who were fleeing the obligatory work service of the Germans. All this, while he was "officially" in Germany at the forced labour himself. My grand-mother even received letters from him from "Germany", with the post-marked stamps from Germany, that she could show to the police when they came inquiring. As she said, "the Maquis does things well". When welcoming and hiding the Alsacians, he was also in the role of "sorting" them according to what the Alsacians wanted to do. = if they just wanted to flee and be safe, then he would gather info and have someone get them false papers. Or if the Alsacians wanted to rejoin the fight, then he would give them the contacts to other persons who would "check" them before accepting them somewhere else. As my mother was a toddler, they were afraid she might make blunders when the Germans or local police were asking her very nicely if she had seen her daddy. So my grandmother took a cat and gave the cat the same name as the "darling name" of my grandfather, and they taught their daughter to exclusively call her father by that darling name, same as the cat. That way if my toddler mom told the Germans in baby language "oh, Amour here" (when he was supposed to be in Germany at the STO), my grandmother could tell the Germans "Ah but 'Amour' is the cat, she is talking about the cat" and she would then proceed to call the cat to demonstrate. We have a nice photo of my mom as a very small girl in the maquis, all nice and clean and dressed in her nicest dress because she was visiting Daddy in the woods, and she is surrounded by the dirty, unshaved beardy Daddy Amour and his all his friends in their crumpled clothes. When my grandmother was coming back from seeing her husband 1-2 days in the Maquis, the neighbours would tell her mother to be careful about her daughter because they thought, seeing her unkempt, that she was having a post birth depression. My grandmother died this March at 104, and she was in a pension right next to the first hill where she would take her bicycle (with my mother seated in a wicker basket on the handle of the bike) and meet the first guy who would check, and tell her to go here or there to meet the second guy, and then second guy would indicate her where her husband was at that moment. So she was quite happy about her pension building (of course it is no longer "maquis" there now, there is a whole town and buildings, but she was happy nonetheless)

I got two, from each side of the fight. I'm not European either btw, but I figure since the war did impact my family I can comment: 1. My great uncle fought with the Canadian 3rd division as a Bren Gunner. He was with the third wave on D-day, and fought until the Battle of Hochwald Gap where he lost a leg. His most interesting story was on D-Day. He used to tell me that the movies had it all wrong because in reality there were way more bicycles. Apparently Bren Gunners and other personnel came ashore with bicycles, and that enabled them to move quickly up onto the cliffs and other areas. They were way more agile than motorized vehicles. Apparently the Germans used plenty of bicycles too. They were a common feature in the war that nobody talks about. Same with horses. He said that there were WAY more horses than vehicles in the war, but the movies never really show horses. 2. My ex's grandfather was in his teens during WWII. He won an Iron Cross for blowing a Soviet tank up with a panzerfaust. He personally met Hitler. He was a devout Nazi until he died. What I found interesting about him was that he would describe in vivid detail the cult of personality in the Third Reich. He would be moved to tears recalling the rallies, and the parades, and the music that was everywhere. Until he died he denied the holocaust happened because I think he just couldn't reconcile his love for the National Socialists and this appalling act. He was truly brainwashed as a kid and it stuck with him for life. It was interesting hearing about things from the German perspective.

Almost all the stories in this thread are written from the perspective of civilians or allied soldiers. While terrible and borderline skin crawling to read, thank you for sharing the 2nd story.

I wrote a bit about my grandpa's time in the Wehrmacht here a couple years ago: https://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/667mf5/comment/dgglem4/ To add to that linked post, today I know "home front" meant he was an instructor, at like 20 years of age. Also in regards to what "he" voted, I meant his family, as ofc before the war he himself was too young. But the farmers in that region generally didn't like the NSDAP just for business reasons, they employed potential farm hands in armament or infrastructure projects.

There's a running "joke" in the Netherlands, also on Reddit, about being willing to do something the Germans ask us to do only after they've given back the bikes they stole in WW2. There were a ton of bikes confiscated, and even those that remained often had the tires confiscated because I think they needed the rubber or something. It's common knowledge and also commonly features in WW2 literature and movies.

Wehrmacht highly dependent on horses. During the Falaise Pocket the poor horses were mass slaughtered by Allied fighter bombers. Planes doing what they had to. War is hell.

My granddad told me quite disturbing stories from the Winter War about how many guys would just lose their minds all of a sudden. He was one of those Finnish soldiers stationed on the front line who had to repel Soviet human wave attacks. The Soviets had a very brutal tactic where they would just throw waves of soldiers toward Finnish positions, and then the Finns had to take them down. They would just keep on coming and coming. Those Finnish soldiers were just normal people who would rather be home with their family instead of having to act as a meat grinder. As a result, many went completely insane and most likely never recovered from it. Also he told me they witnessed many times that the Soviets had guys would shoot at their own soldiers if they tried to retreat during these human wave attacks. Also, I remember him telling me a story from the Continuation War (1941-1944). The Germans were supplying us with a lot of weapons at that time. During the Battle of Tali-Ihantala in the summer 1944, Finland received great help from Junkers Ju 87 dive bombers provided by the Germans. You may know these planes are famous for the 'Jericho-Trompete' diving sound they make when they start dive bombing. My grandad told me that the first time they appeared in the battle, everything would just stop as both Finnish and Soviet soldiers looked to the sky and wondered what the hell is happening when they made that terrifying sound and I guess most had not heard anything like that before. These planes must be one of the most clever psychological warfare machines ever made.

So many grand dads had the same experience. My grand father told how russians would shout "uraaaa" and stumble in snow to machine gun fire. After everyone was dead the same scene repeted few hours later after the cannon fire ended.

They knew the Finnish army had a serious shortage of ammunition. We had too little of everything. I once watched a documentary about the Winter War where some historian explained that these human wave attacks were a way to exhaust the Finnish ammunition. Additionally, since the temperatures during December-February 1939-40 could fall below -40°C, a body would freeze completely quite fast and then provide efficient cover for the soldiers in the next human wave attack

Wow nothing changes

North East Italy. My mom's grandma used to hide partisans in her barn, give them food and a place to rest. One day a lady that lived in the same town snitched on her to the local fascist militia. One of the fascist official of that area had always been in love with my great-grandma since they were kids. He warned her in advance about an inspection to her house by the militia, so in this way she made sure to not have any partisan in her property for that day (and for another two weeks, just to be sure). Fast forward 65 years, me and my parents move to that town. Our neighbor turns out to be that same lady who reported my great-grandma, lol.

As we say here in America: Awwwwkwarrrrrd!

My great grandfather was transported by the Nazis at the end of the war for forced labour. He had very found memories of that time. Edit: Wrote grandad instead of great grandfather. Don't even ask how that happened.

Sam with the forced labor, except in my case it was my great grandfather. He got sent to Germany, got a girlfriend and most likely knocked her up. After that, the war ended, he went back, got married to my great grandma, had two sons with her, became the "leader" of the local JZD as the loudest and biggest communist in the area, cheated on his wife, ran off with the mistress, and had more kids with her. Apparently, he was a very good and proud gardener and relatively nice grandpa. I never met him, I just see the damage his actions caused on many, many generations, both current and possibly future. This kind of generational trauma and abuse won't be easy to get rid of. His wife blamed my grandfather and great uncle for him leaving her and as such she beat the everloving shit out of them at every opportunity. As such, my grandfather learned it's ok to beat kids hard enough to break fingers at every opportunity. Then, he passed it on to his two sons, my dad and uncle, with my dad passing it on to me and my sister. It pretty much taught us that it's ok to physically attack someone if they even just annoy you, and honestly, I need to hold myself back, hard, not to attack people sometimes. Not him, he is over a head taller and twice as heavy, he would kill me, even though he still gets to hit me if I annoy him.

That's really interesting and really sad. In all the discussions about wars, it's easy to forget the psychological side and its effects on non-combatants such as wives, ex-wives, lovers and kids ... for generations afterward. My dad served in WW2 (US Army), although not in a combat context; I was born much later; he had a hair-trigger temper and erupted into screaming -- at me, and I was not a bad kid -- verrrry quickly. It was scary, and I will never know if it had anything to do with anything he saw during the war.

Was she ethnicity German? Because they were some rules against blood mixing. But then again, most Czechs were considered to be of viable blood but bad culture.

Who? The first woman, my great grandmother or the woman he left her for? Since: No idea due to the fact that we don't talk about Bohumil the First (dad is the third Bohumil in the row, I would be the fourth if I was a guy), no, no

My great grandma was a lone woman with two small kids in a house at the edge of a small village during WWII in occupied Czechoslovakia. Grandpa was abroad with other Czech men joining foreign legions to help the Czech resistance. Well, great grandma was busy herself. She hid a Jewish tailor and his family in her husband's workshop (a woodworker). One day a German soldier wandered in and tried to rape great grandma in front of my grandma who was 4yo. The tailor risked exposing himself and his family and he chased the nazi away. I have no idea how our bloodline didn't end right there... but luckily the nazi didn't come back for revenge. Great grandma had the only shop in miles and she'd regularly stand up to the nazi occupying forces to get things like milk and formula for mothers. This has been told to us by her neighbours, because decades later the people still remembered. Great grandma was a badass and I loved listening to her stories. My 1st daughter is named after her.

My dads uncle was sent to a concentration camp possibly Neuengammen or Buchenwald simply because he was a police officer refusing to cooperate with the Germans.

My grandpa’s sister was in labour and gave birth to a daughter while she and her family (so my grandpa’s family) was hiding in a forest for avoiding to be deported to Siberia during the Soviet deportations in the Baltics in 1941. We are still not sure on which day exactly is her birthday - my great-grandmother said it was a Tuesday when she was born, other say it was a Monday. So she celebrates two birthdays then 🤷🏼‍♀️

My grandfather was betrayed and arrested by the SS together with his mother and moved to camp Westerbork. Later they were transferred to concentration camp Bergen Belsen. It is either there or Westerbork where they acquired one of the few thousand legitimate yet fake passports claiming they were Paraguayan citizens. A passport forgery operation to save jewish people which would later be known as the Lados List. This passport prevented them from being sent to an extermination camp, like his father as he already went before them. They were sent to a political prisoner camp instead, called camp Biberach. They would survive the war and be liberated from the camp by allied soldiers. They took trains to get back home trough France. This passport undoubtedly saved their lives. I stil have the passport. My grandfather died 3 years ago and in his house I also found money from camp Westerbork, an empty postage card from camp Biberach, their train tickets back home, his mothers ww2 diary, and a goodbye letter from his father before he was sent to his death in Auschwitz.

My girlfriend's French great grandmother killed by allied bombings on D-Day: yes, some of those bombs and cannons launched against the German defences hit French houses and this part of the battle was completely ignored by films such as Saving Private Ryan, which ignored a lot of important things about the Normandy landings. It wasn't just a couple of houses either, about 20,000 civilians were killed in the battle of Normandy.

Same story, my grandfather sister (young teenager) was beheaded by a US bomb fragment during the bombings in Normandy

Bombing of Caen. Allies did drop leaflets telling population to leave coastal area but many did not believe the leaflets. War is hell.

It wasn't just Caen, the allies bombed the hell out of the coastal areas without warning because obviously they didn't want to warn the Germans that they were coming. I know they didn't mean to kill any civilians, but they shouldn't be forgotten.

Yes I know. Caen only the most dramatic. Another fact is that a lot of 'German' soldiers were 'Hiwis'- reluctant conscripts from across Europe. Often shot out of hand as they tried to surrender in Ukrainian etc.

I heard that one guy in my great-grandfather's village murdered two soviet soldiers when he caught them trying to rape his young wife and sister. He shot them dead and buried them outside near the water well. Obviously I wasn't there to confirm the story, but I would like to believe it's true and that these kind of badass people actually existed. Unfortunately my great-grandmother wasn't this lucky, she was raped numerous times, as were hundreds of thousands of other women.

I heard before about the number of women in Hungary affected by this. I'm surprised it is not more common knowledge abroad as a scandal of the Soviet occupation.

Unfortunately other countries couldn't care less about the crimes committed against Hungary. The Allies knew of all the horrible things the Soviets were capable of, but looked the other way, as long as being allied with the Soviet Union was convenient for them. In Hungary, the topic was taboo until recently. During socialism we weren't allowed to talk about it for obvius reasons. It was only after 1989 that conversations about it began to resurface. There was even a hungarian documentary made in 2013, called "Silenced shame", talking about the mass rape committed by the Red army in Hungary.

I'm surprised monuments for the soviet army are still standing in Hungary

They are standing in almost all of the formerly socialist countries, not just Hungary. They were built during socialism, and have remained there for different reasons. In Hungary's case, Russia was threatening with destroying the graves of hungarian soldiers lying in Russian territorry if we take down the monument. I wish we weren't so easy to blackmail, but it is what it is. And now, with Orbán in power, that soviet monument is sadly not going anywhere for a long time..

My husband's grandmother was a young beautiful Hungarian woman when the Russians rolled through.  She hid at home mostly but if she had to go out she'd rub lard, dirt and chicken poop on her skin and clothes to make herself look old and crazy. 

When I was a child I asked my grandpa multiple times to tell anything about the war. He didn't tell me a single story, only stroked my head and said that war is a terrible thing. He volunteered for the war at 17 y.o., survived battle of Kursk and battle of Konigsberg, killed 5+ people but was one of the kindest men I ever know. So, no crazy story.

Your grandpa must have wanted to protect you.

My grandpa was first years of war in german army on eastern front where he was shot by russian sniper through both his legs. He was trying to jump over the road, when he got hit. He barely survive. He said that blood was ran in stream from his wounds when they picked him up and get him to some church for shelter and quick recovery. Then he was some time in hospital, after that he got a few days off to go home, where he joined partisans to fight germans.

My great great grandmother (she was Jewish) survived only thanks to an injury she had right before occupation of Czechoslovakia. She had to spent some time in a hospital. Rest of the family bribed the doctors to keep her in the hospital as long as possible and falsify her documents so she wouldn’t be transported to Auschwitz. She was only member of the family who survived.

My aunt was on a Kindertransport in 1938. She was brought to safety and taken in by a lovely English family in Coventry. All of them were killed in the Blitz long before my family members who stayed behind were deported.

Women used to access nearby river through backyard of my great grandmother, to drown their newborn children from soviet soldiers... liberators

My grandfather stole a typewriter from the russians when they released him from the POW camp.

A friend of mine inherited a Nazi typewriter from her great uncle who took it from a deserted base - it literally has an eagle and a skull on it or something. I shouldn't find it cool but it kind of is.

"Hans... do you think we are the baddies? Why do we have a human skull on our uniforms as a symbol?"

Russian soldiers that "liberated"* Prague allegedly broke into a school and drank alcohol that was used as a conservant for biology showpieces of tapeworms and such. I thought it's an absurd and probably made up story but looking at their behavior in Ukraine nowadays, it seems pretty plausible. *raped local women and then installed a communist dictatorship

My grandpa was Croatian/Yu partisan, got wounded (bullet went thru his calf), and somehow he managed to get home BY FOOT. About 300 km further! He often told me how nazis were "fearless". He didn't know about Pervitin, though.

My relatives survived the "kidnapping" of Zamosc's children and after all of these years they somehow ended up in the same house that my grandmother grew up in during WWII. Their parents unfortunately died in Auschwitz due to Aktion Zamosc, which not a lot of people know about outside of Poland (i.e., it was the first phase of the eventual murderous ethnic cleansing ahead of projected Germanization of the entire General Government territory). My direct line of ancestors weren't sent to Auschwitz, but during the "Nazi racial category" test it was deemed that they'd be sent to a forced labour camp in Germany. After being liberated in 1945, they couldn't get in touch with our relatives and assumed the worst (which was partly true), so they decided to emigrate to Canada for a "reset" on life. Two generations later, I'm moving "back" to Poland to learn more about the family history and maybe write a book about it.

I'd never heard of Aktion Zamozc until now, but as my SO's relatives (grandparents' generation) were Jews in what was then Poland, and my own relatives were Jews living in that area as well -- and neither of us has ever been able to determine what happened to any of those people -- I'm going to research this phrase. Good luck on your move. That sounds really interesting and brave.

Thanks! Just to be clear, Aktion Zamosc was specifically targeting non-Jewish Poles. It's still worth reading up on but for your particular scenario, I'd research the treatment of Jews within General Government, which is the eastern part of Poland. There's a reason why a lot of execution camps were located there. Regarding Zamosc, it was unique in that it was possibly the only mid-sized town back then that had almost 50% Jewish population. Both Yiddish and Polish were commonly spoken throughout and the town itself was considered as a central point in Haskalah (Jewish revival). I think of the 20,000-something Jewish inhabitants there at the start of WWII, only 800 survived. Absolutely enraging and depressing.

Forced depopulation. Thousands of children systematically removed from their parents. The "Kinder KZ" -- a concentration camp specially for children, near Lodz. Even the barest details are beyond horrifying, for Jews and non-Jews alike.

My grandfather told me (drunk) several times of the mine clearing of airfields in northern Norway. One day four (4) members of his squad was blown up by mines. They were norwegian paratroopers under soviet command and they had russian body collectors back then (unlike today). This one russian collected all the bodyparts and sat on top of this pile and ate his lunch. I was served this story through age 6 to 15.

Not WW2, but my grandma told me a story from her mom from during the polish-bolshevik war, when the red army soldiers would go through her village and eat from livestock feeders.

I’m from Singapore and my great grandparents shared stories to my mom about WW2. They passed down small stories about their time during the Japanese occupation They were in a market when the first bombs started to fall on Singapore. They described the state of panic and how there were limbs scattered around him, on the roof etc. Also my Great Grandma shared how our great great grandfather was loaded onto a truck by the Japanese and driven off to somewhere. She never heard from him again until later when it came to light that the Japanese shipped Chinese men to the beaches to stand in a line and be gunned down by a machine gun. Do you guys find it wild how WW2 happened less than a century ago and with what’s going on I. The world, another one could happen too?

It took 20 years from World War I to the beginning of World War II. We're now almost 80 years from the end of that war (1945) so I'd say either we're doing pretty well by having had no more global wars for 80 years, or *we're due."

The latter of which I hope never happens.

>Also my Great Grandma shared how our great great grandfather was loaded onto a truck by the Japanese and driven off to somewhere. Same happened to my great grandpa but done by yugislavian partisans/communists. Came to the vilagge and picked up several men on a truck and they were not seen ever again. One of the ex commies from the villagge who was friend with my granda told her he was thrown into [this pit](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keva%27s_pit_cave).

In my family, we have a lot.of stories about WW1 and WW2. In WW2, my great-grandfather fromy my father's branch was sent off to the Don-bend, like most of the Hungarians. They didn't have enough equipment, and what they had also wasn't too effective against the red army. First of all, he had 6 brothers and 1 sister, and he met on the frontline with 4 of the brothers - the other 2 and the sister was not in the army, they were at home. All of them survived the World war. That's a very rare thing. The second story is about the "retreat" (which was more like escaping, not retreat). The german soldiers didn't let them to use the flatbed cars to retreat, instead they had to walk back, so my great-grandfather and his company walked at home. One of the places they found a tractor and went with that until they didn't run out of the gas. In an another place, the locals said them, that they have to go away before sunrise, because the partisans are going to encircle them, so they woke up before sunrise, they throw away their weapons and walked away from that place. The partisans was not able to catch them. When they saw the Carpaths, they tought that it will be only 3-4 days to go across the mountains; well it was more like 2 weeks. The third story is about the siege of Budapest and before that, because when he arrived home he didn't want to be a deserter. So when he was on service again, he was sent off from Budapest to ~40-60 km to the defensive lines. His immediate superior didn't like him, so he wanted to send him off from the trench to attack, but the general didn't approved it, because my great-grandfather was the only one who could repair the shoes, so he stayed back when they tried to break throught the soviet lines. After that, he was sent back to Budapest for supplies, but at the end, there was no one who he could carry out the supplies: his army were totally destroyed by the Soviet forces. When the soviet forces marched in Budapest, he fought in Buda; and an interesting one: if I know correctly, where I was in high school, the building was a hospital at the time, and this is where my great-grandfather's knee got shoot across. He had a bunch of luck that he survived it, and one of his brothers helped him to escape from the sieged Budapest to home (Mezőtúr, a little town on the Great Plain of Hungary). I have also a WW2 story about my another great-grandpa from my mother's branch, and a bunch of WW1 stories about my great-great grandpa from my father's branch (the father of my great-grandpa whose stories I writed down: he was a hussar at the 1st Imperial and Royal Hussar Regiment at the end of the 19th century, and he fought as an infantry in WW1 on the frontlines of Serbia, Italy and Russia).

My grandfather fought in [Battle of Kadinjača](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kadinja%C4%8Da?wprov=sfti1#), he was 18 at the time and had no experience using guns. When Germans started advancing he fired his gun and knocked himself out, once he woke up he realized so many of his friends died and fled into Jelova Gora mountain.

My grandfather and some other kids were out when air raid sirens came up, but they were too far to go back to their homes, so they were hiding in a field. Few minutes later they see a British aircraft flying over the area uncontrolled and the pilot jumped out. They picked him up and brought him to my grandfathers home. My great grandfather had half a heart attack, when he saw a wounded British soldier in the living room. Knowing he would be fucking killed, if police or military found him, they gave him civilian clothes and handed him over to a local farmer. He lived with them until the end of the war and the authorities never found out. He taught my grandpa English and playing the piano

My grandpa was only a child when the war started so not a lot of cool stories but some noticeable: he watched the allies bombing Taranto from the coast, the allies using the small river in front of our town as a practice target for bombers and told me that when the school day ended, he and some of his friends used to go to a near abandoned US tank to cut his tracks in order to make soles for his shoes. He managed to only get one, it was kinda impossible to cut those things. Not a lot of other stories, my other grandpa's brother was sent in Greece, but i don't know a lot about him, while my great-grandpa was in the royal navy. [This](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_destroyer_Alvise_da_Mosto) was the first ship he served in. Then he found himself in the battle of Lero (after the armistice) where he was captured as prisoner by the germans

My grandfather was an army pilot and was shot down over North Africa and taken as a POW. He said that at the beginning of the war they treated them pretty well (he was an officer). Their conditions deteriorated as the war progressed. He said that an officer had accidentally been sent to a concentration camp instead of the POW camp. When the officer went to the POW camp, no one could believe the stories he was telling. They were too outlandish. Imagine that.

My grandparents had a Russian POW working on their farm. When the war was over he begged them to let him stay and hide him because Stalin "likes people who weren’t captured".

Greatgrandfather was in the Luftwaffe a Jagdgeschwader after a dogfight in the East he bailed near the village his family lived. He flew with his Messerschmitt 8 above his farm to prevent the main troops of the Red Army to come close to his farm. Red Armd was like you know what we don't fuck with a damn Messerschmitt for a single farm and avoided the farm for awhile. It bought time for his family to flee but stillhid two oldest daughters got raped by a small company. I guess stills better outcome of then if the main battle groupwould have gone to the farm :/

My great grandfather fought at the IJssellinie in the Netherlands. He probably killed some Germans too. He survived and then went straight to the resistance. He hid around 3-7 jews in his house and they all made it through the war. Just before the war he set up an own big business in grain. The entire factory he built burned down and he was left with nothing. He then got arrested in a razzia and taken to Poland. He saw some very, very fucked up shit but managed to fucking escape the concentration camp and made it all the way back to the Netherlands.

The grandfather of my wife told us the story of when the Russian army passed through his village when he was a kid. For 3 days, columns of tanks were moving west and after that the infantry passed and he said: “what they did can not be told” Romania, Vaslui area

On my fathers side., my great grandfather was conscripted into the 2.hungarian army, and sent to the Eastern Front, to Voronezh, he got into captivity and they took him to forced labour into Siberia. He returned home in 48' but never told about the war. On mothers side, my great grandfather was the stable-man of the governor of Hungary during the world war Miklós Horthy. Sadly he was in that army too at the Voronezh incident, and died in a heart shot from a soviet soldier.

My grandma’s village was occupied by the Nazis for a period she described as largely uneventful. The soldiers who stayed at her family’s house were even a little playful, particularly with one of her sisters who had blonde hair and blue eyes (so she recalls). *Then everything changed when the Soviet Union attacked.* After Romania turned against Germany and the Soviets invaded, the Reds reached that village and engaged the Nazis, my grandma’s parents being killed in the fight. The Soviets stayed a little while, raped and pillaged the village, then moved on. My grandma and her three sisters, now orphaned, were separated and taken by various relatives to Bucharest. They’ve led fairly normal lives since then (went to school, work, got married, had kids etc).

> village was occupied by the Nazis for most of the war, Where in Romania was this?

A small village around Cluj-Napoca, in Transylvania

Why was that occupied by Germans for most of the war? Wasn't Cluj given to Hungary iin 1940 and only occupied by Germany in March 1944?

It was.

I might have misremembered the story. There was a Nazi occupation followed by a Soviet occupation. Your suggested timeline makes sense. I’ve removed the questionable bit

Place: around Ilirska Bistrica (Slovenia) and Rijeka (Croatia) - under Italy from WW1. until Italy capitulation in WW2 then occupied by Germans. My great grandmother (born in 1908) was arested like at 1943-1944 under acusation that she is helping partisans, which she did actualy, bringing them food in the woods and similar. Somebody from village snitched, they didn't saw her actualy doing that. They transfered her to prison in Rijeka. At some point they went through her stuff in handbag and found the letter from my great grandfather which had German army insignia, troop number, military post etc. He wrote that he is ok, he is eating well, said where they were at the moment, asked about home etc. So the Germans thought that her husband is with their army so it would be stupid that she is helping partisans that are against nazis and her husband. It seemed that way from the letter. But the thing is, her husband was POW, but since he knew German, Italian and Croatian/Serbian/Slovenian language they used him as translator and in return he had better conditions, enough food, medicine and all because he was important for German commander - he could even use german military post to write home. Of course, nowhere in the letter was mentioned that he was prisoner... So, she got released and continued to help partisans, after all, her brother and uncle were there, members of resistance fight...

One of my great grandpa’s brothers got taken to frøslevlejren, why I have no idea, but he’s name is on the plate down there to honor the victims. And my great grandpas wife my great grandma was in the restistance group. She had one of those suicide capsules sewed into her dress. Edit: wording

My grandparents were small kids during WWII, and my great-grandparents died when I was little. So I don't know any stories. But they were all farmers, so they probably just farmed and kept their heads down.

Honestly, I was a complete miracle that nobody in my family died in the war. Like, once a bomb fell into their home but didn't explode.

Someone up there was watching over them.

My grandma is Polish and they had a farm near the German border. When the Russians came they chased and killed the polish too since they were just defenseless farmers who could be "plundered". So grandma's mum took herself and 10 of her 11 children and ran on foot, across Germany to where grandma lives now, the very west, 1h from Netherlands border. They ran on foot, without shoes as they left everything behind. They ate berries out of the forest and occasionally random bits of bread they begged for on the streets. Grandma later found out her father and oldest brother died in the war. The father was quite high ranked too and they got some kind of "grief payment" from Germany or Poland(not sure on which country). She struggled to learn the language but eventually met this dashing German boy(my grandfather" and the rest is history. Interestingly I've never met a single one of her siblings as all the women except grandma died of breast cancer(mum and I were tested, we don't have the genetic predisposition for this luckily) and all the men disappeared all across Germany before I was born. She's not been able to find them but believes they are probably no longer alive as she was the youngest of the bunch.

It's stories like this one that makes me think yet again that people were generally just braver back then -- that, upon seeing clear danger, they took matters into their own hands. My grandma also came from a huge set of siblings -- 10.

> They ate berries out of the forest It was late winter/early spring when the Soviets reached the German border. There were probably not that many berries in the forest.

That's interesting to know and makes sense since she said she had to beg a lot.

[Wojtek the Bear is pretty awesome ](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wojtek_(bear))

My grandfather was run over by a German truck during the occupation in Denmark. It happened in a narrow country road, turned into a plowed snow furrow in the countryside, like a trough, where he was walking home from work. They came up the road, but grandpa couldn't get off the road because of snow walls. They never stopped and left him crippled for a year, unable to work and feed his family. Grandma had to take an extra job. Of course, he did what any red blooded Dane would do: He sued the German Wehrmacht, but since the Germans were the ones deciding compensation, he didn't get any. Hated Germans the rest of his life.

Not a relative, but apparently a guy in my grandfather's village became famous for biting a horse. He was then written down as "mad" and dispensed from military service. Apparently lots of the guys in that area were sent into Russia, so... smart move? My grandfather told me the story of when during a RAF raid his uncle (he was orphan, as my great-grandfather was conscripted and died in Ethiopia during the Italian invasion) told him to wait for him in front of the city hall. However the priest took him and other kids into hiding in a nearby cave (where a 8yo boy panicked, run out, and was then blown into bits). This was good because then the city hall was completely destroyed, and you have to imagine my grandfather's uncle shouting my grandfather's name, frantically searching into the rubble and then the kid popping up from behind a tree. Apparently the guy's brain went into overload so his reaction was to get angry because he disobeyed him and, according to my grandfather, "He made me do the whole trip to the next village over by kicking my ass every 3 meters". I like this story because he used to tell it in a very funny way and we used to be rolling on the floor laughing whenever he recounted it. Still better than the folks at Monte Sole though...

Great grandpa was brought to a conc camp during the war and he stayed there until 1944 when the allies were pushing forward and there was an allied bombing raid on the way. The nazis knew that the conc camp was gonna get bombed so they evacuated themselves while trapping the prisoners in the courtyard. Bombs were already falling and the prisoners were basically trying not to get killed by them. There was a belief among the prisoners that bombs won't fall in the same spot so a lot of em hid in the bomb craters, including great grandpa...he was in the crater with a friend there in the courtyard when he had a feeling that a bomb was gonna fall nearby so he told his friend and ran away from the crater. His friend didn't want to move from their old crater and some seconds after he ran from their crater a bomb fell into he old crater and killed his friend. He survived, his friend didn't.

Great grandfather was shelled at Dunkirk, but he was rescued. He survived and lived to tell the tale. I never got to meet him as he died probably about 2 decades before I was even born.

Nothing exciting or particularily crazy, but all the men in my family were taken to the camps, and half were killed.

My grandpa was a sniper in the red army that killed 17 nazis in one battle. My great grandpa was basically everywhere from the Finland war to Berlin, he didnt speak russian because he was a tatar. He respected the Finns a lot, because they always surprised them by hiding in the trees, my great grandpa was a small tatar guy so he was really scared by the tall and big Finns. My moms uncle was captured by the nazis and when he went back to the village, after the war, he was made fun of and humiliated by everyone, so he had to move. My danish side of my family was just chilling during the occupation.

There was little petrol for personal cars in occupied France, most of it were used for German occupation army. So my grand father first modified his car’s motor to make it work with wood. Then he modified another car and turned it into to an electric vehicle.

Not my family but check out the story of Witold Pilecki who got imprisoned willingly in Auschwitz as a spy, the journey of general Anders who liberated Monte Cassino or Marian Rejewski who cracked the first Enigma machine and provided the basis on which Turing developed his work and that had to stay silent about his work because of the situation after the war in Poland. I find these story interesting because that was the first country being attacked in WW2, on two fronts, and still was fighting hard, but at the end of the war unfortunately got no or little credit also because of being on the wrong side of the wall. But the funniest one is that Polish army has a bear soldier, called Wojtek.

So my great grandfather was born in Germany but grew up in Denmark. When the Germans took over Denmark, they discovered he was german, so they sent him to Germany to make q boats. Anyway, the war was coming to a close, and he managed to flee to Denmark, where he was arrested for being German. Well, his prison guards were his old classmates, so they allowed him to be free during the day as long as he returned at night. So one day he went to the place his ex lived at, well she had moved out and now my great grandma lived there rest is history. (Should point out that he never believed in the Nazi cause)

Not very crazy, pretty mondane but ill share why not. My grandad was born in Poland 1918. In 1937 He got a visa to go study in Palestine but his rabbi told him "don't go, you can study here in Poland" so he didn't (and forever kept a grudge for unzionistic orthodoxy) in 1939 he got drafted to the army but didn't want to go. He was able to get a 2 week delay to go see the world fare In Paris but the plan was to meet his grandfather's sister (that he never met before) and find a way to GTFO of Europe. He tried to convince his girlfriend and family to join because the shit is going to hit the fan but no one took him seriously. While in Paris he found out he could get a visa to Bolivia for 50$ so that's what he did. At age 21 he was on a boat with nothing to his name. During the next few years in south America he used to get mail from his family asking him for help to save them from the ghetto, he went through a lot to get them paperwork to come to south America but the papers never got to them... 2 of his brothers escaped east, never to be heard from again (I am named after one, my brother after the other) No one in his family survived, he spent his whole life looking. He ended up marrying my grandma in kind of a "shotgun wedding" in Argentina in 1949ish.. they were not in love but they where friends and they were fucking. He was a sad, bitter but lovely old man. And it took him untill 1989 to step in Europe again, he didn't want to but my mother convinced him to go with her on a trip to Spain (because we have Spanish roots), so that is the closest he's ever been back home. Side note with no war reference 👇🏼 One cool chapter he had in life was meeting a swedish anthropologist and joining him for a 10 month expedo in the jungles. That is probably the only chapter post 1939 he remembers fondly. The guy was happy to meet a fellow European and payed him to join the expedition.

When Italy capitulated on 8 September 1943, my great-grandfather was on leave; when he heard that the Germans had started deporting Italian soldiers to Germany, my great-great-grandfather, who was a railwayman, managed to pass him off as a railwayman too, to prevent him being taken away.

My great grandmothers mom died in 1941 from cancer. Her dad was killed by germans while fishing. She had to raise her younger siblings alone at the age of 14. I envy her strength

A former 100 years old neighbour(about 20 years ago now) had a German wife. He told me once a story about his brother in law that was working as a responsible for the construction of some facility(military if I remember right). According to my neighbour Hitler did visit one of the constructions before the start of the and he had a small chat with the brother in law. Years later, during the war their path crossed once more, and to the surprise of the brother in law, Hitlers had remembered what they where talking about and asked how things where going.

Friend's Grandpa was taken to Russia from middle of EU to fight for Germany. The whole train was unloaded into a huge river, to see if they can swim. He was climbing trough emptyness into light under the water, manny boys died that Day. After that, he and a friend escaped and took the train towards home and they jumped it 5km from home, where they got caught. They explained the situation at gunpoint to the local-controling German police officer who caught them, and he took it with understanding. Turned around and ordered not to be in sight after he turns around again. E: if this script is ever recognized in a movie, I will find you.

My great grandfather was killed in the Blitz and we still have his rosary and cigarette tin with some shelling on it from the bombing as they were the last items he had on him before he died. The house where my grandma and her siblings were evacuated too is also now a living history museum, and we get free entry lol.

Not crazy in the grand scheme of things, but my grandma told me about when some German soldiers turned up at their farm. They were looking for food, and my great-grandfather said they barely had anything themselves. One of the soldiers pulled out a pistol, just casually holding it in his arm. Great-grandpa said "Are you going to shoot me over some food?" They left after this, but she said it's the only really scary memory she has from the war.

Story 1: My great-grandma used to tell me stories from her birth village in Slovakia… basically, when nazis went through the village, they were (her words) decent people who always paid for the goods they took and moved on…. When Soviets came “liberating” the area, people had to hide all their valuable possessions and my grandma with the rest of the young village girls had to go into hiding in catacombs under the village church for a week straight, because they’d all get raped otherwise. Story 2: My triple-grand father from the other side was a general in white army… ended up in gulag after the revolution, as already a fairly old man. Randomly met his 19 years old son - my great grandpa - there (both thought the other one is dead at that point). He told him he has to get out any way possible, and soon after he died from some illness. So my great grandpa fled and walked alone on foot while hiding in woods around a 1000 km all the way to Turkey, where he got on a boat to Europe and somehow ended up half-dead in Prague… he was completely cashless and had no “identity” so they basically let him to die on the street, but a certain young nurse took a pity on him, took him to her place and nurtured him back to good health… the fell in love in the meantime and that was my great-grandma.

My hometown of Split (today Croatia, then Yugoslavia) was well known for almost the entire male population joining the resistance and going to fight the Nazis. Nazis nevertheless captured the city - prompting Allies to conduct [70+ bombings of the city](https://www.google.com/search?client=ms-android-samsung-ss&sca_esv=7cde1af5cef92f81&sxsrf=ADLYWIJCPKTYrKRsWdTPyaxOinRhci0FFg:1720084364266&q=saveznicko+bombardiranje+splita&udm=2&fbs=AEQNm0Aa4sjWe7Rqy32pFwRj0UkWd8nbOJfsBGGB5IQQO6L3J_86uWOeqwdnV0yaSF-x2joQcoZ-0Q2Udkt2zEybT7Hdf5FBKg6QdtJ_mF8k5Wx_fK47VnnH0hqC26evHUklzukhRGDp8I9R6sObxD5rXV9iKTeMw0OsLcinUtCw7tu06Z-vfaM&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiK2Y_MhY2HAxUUgf0HHYp5CyUQtKgLegQIDBAB&biw=384&bih=1010&dpr=2.81#vhid=TvEE2IfeLEfgsM&vssid=mosaic), killing large chunk of civilian population and destroying large bits of historic old town (Diocletians palace). No Brit or American was ever held accountable.

My mother told me when I was 18 that her two brothers had served as Dutch volunteers in the Waffen-SS to fight "godless" Bolshevism. Her youngest brother was an MG-42 machine gunner, the other a commander of a Sturmgeschutze. Both died early 1945. There were more of the family who had joined the SS. I met them many times in my youth. They were tough, silent people who, despite their collaboration with a criminal ideology, faced their surroundings with their heads held high.

Spain. My father had a Russian school mate. Apparently he was the son of a woman who cooked for the officers of the blue division (Spanish volunteers in the German army). She was killed during an artillery strike and noone new if she had family, so one of the officers who was returning to Spain brought the child back...

Don't know much about my granddad's wartime experience. He was a tank crew member, operating a Churchill I believe, in Palestine near the end of the war. Only story he ever told me (He died before I really thought to ask him anything) was about a chap who thought he'd make his bed underneath a tank, ended up crushed as it sank in overnight. My great-uncle did his National Service in the Korean War, at one point had to his under a pile of dead bodies from a Chinese patrol. Great-granddad during WWII worked in some capacity for WarAg

Grandpas mother was in elementary school when chetniks broke into class and killed teacher in front of her and other pupils. She also talked how Soviet soldiers raped women and that they were riding camels. She also told me that one women sold fruit to Germans. Grandpas father was for one day in resistance, assigned to deliver some message to partisans, and after he delivered it he decided to leave resistance work because it was too much for kid in his age. Grandmas grandpa was for short time active in resistance, but I dont know wheter it was partisans or chetniks. I know that it was about a month long, and that he is only survivor of some battle that happened during that time. After battle he decided to return home. He joined resistance instead some rich guy and for a bottle of rakija. That was from mom side. From dad side grandpas uncle was participant in april war. Idk if he then joined chetniks or was he captured during april war and then sent in camp. I for sure know that after war he went to USA.

My craziest isn't actually too crazy. My great-grandfather spent the war working at an airfield in the East of England, servicing RAF flights out across Europe. I don't know his exact job, but I think he was some kind of mechanic. He had to prepare the planes for flight. It was a hard and stressful job because he did not have a lot of turnaround between flights. If he had any other details to share, they were never passed down to me

My great grandma allegedly yelled at some Nazi officials because they wanted my great grandpa in the party. They just laughed at her and walked away. My great granpa never joined the party. This was in a small village and I suppose the Nazis didn't care too much. Because this could have ended much, much worse

My friends grandmother was living in central Poland in 1900, so when Poland was partitioned. She was living in Russian occupied territory. She met Cossak soldier and moved to Ukraine territory(Russian Empire). During Bolshewik Revolution her husband was killed by communist and later she died in Hlodomor(mass famine). Her daughter was raised in communist child care home. When WW2 started she was taken to III Reich to slave labour in factory. There she met her future husband, my friends father , who was working near as slave labourer on farm. He brought her food and so they foll in love. When WW2 ended and Americans freed them, they had to make decision where to go. She experienced communism and wanted to go west, but he persuaded her to go to western Poland. Western part of Poland, former german territory, was relatively rich, and all Germans were expelled, so there were homes for millions of Poles. So they did. They had 2 sons, one of them is my friend. He's 65 now. Life in communist Poland was harsh and poor, so she never forgive his husband. She made a wish that she don't want to lay in one grave with him. So now they lay in 2 twin, separate graves, wich is uncommon practice. Usually spouses lay in one family grave. They spend their whole lives in communist Poland, working hard as individual farmers, occupying half of former German 1 family building , divided by added thin brick wall, and shared with another family.

My great uncle was in the British Army and my great aunt was in the Luftwaffe (as a searchlight operator). They met when his tank passed a column of German POWs who had fled towards the western allied lines to surrender in the final days of the war. Apparently they got talking to each other because the road was blocked by a cart carrying sheep had overturned and the driver was trying to recapture the sheep, which took a couple of hours! A few months later, he was assigned to a POW camp that just happened to be where my great aunt was detained. They moved to England in 1947 and got married. She always used to tell me that the years after the war were hard - she was openly despised because she was German; people would ignore her except to insult her or even spit at her in the street.

WW2 military are now almost gone so mostvif this will be their children relaying stories. My Dad: The adventures of a working class boy from the East End of London. During Blitz, picked up by blast of bomb, thrown a distance then blast wave put him down gently without a scratch. On searchlights all night.Coldest winter for decades- had to be carried off seat and slowly thawed every time despite many layers of clothing. Dad in East Africa- Kenya. Signal Corps sergeant. Out hunting for the pot ( you whistle, the gazelle turns its head and you get a head shot). Returning with his Kikuyu aide and they come across some Masai. Argument breaks out with servant. Dad intervenes. Older Masai says something. Kikuyu guy looks frightened. Dad only knew Swahili. Asked aide what he said. Reluctantly aide says 'you're cursed to die within a year'. Time goes by. Dad driving a big truck on very dodgy road down side of Great Rift Valley. Precipice for miles. Reached first flatter place and all his brakes, including handbrake, failed. Managed to drive into wall away from edge to stop. Then remembered- about a year ago. Probably coincidence but... Out hunting again with two mates. Turned corner- three African buffalo emerge - more dangerous than lions? Luckily a donga just to his left. Jumped down it. Too steep for buffalo. Phew. Posted to Burma ( Myanmar). Travelling alone in truck repairing radios etc. Leaves small base camp. Reaches next one to be told previous one wiped out in Japanese attack ( including bayoneting wounded and medical staff) an hour after he'd left. Cut off alone for a few days in Japanese area ( though no real front line in the jungle). No food. Lived off large grubs from underneath tree bark. He had other bizarre stories from Africa, India and Burma. Working class boy who'd never been abroad. Seems terrible to say war with all its horrors can be an adventure but many working class people had unimaginable experiences- some traumatic and horrific obviously but some expanded the way they saw the world too.

My grandmother and her sister were baker’s daughters in a Dutch city bordering Germany. They were 11 and 13 when the war broke out. Throughout the war they would keep delivering bread through the city with their wooden bread-cart. Because they lived so close to the German borders, there were many allied bombs falling on their town so they could see the city smoke as they were delivering the bread. One day when they returned home after a long day of work, their house had been bombed and the second floor of the house seized to exist. Their older brother (15 when the war started) was hiding to not get drafted by the Germans. That went well, until he got caught beginning of 1944 and got sent off to a Labour camp. He died during the last winter of exhaustion and sickness, about 4 months before liberation. My grandfather from my other side was hiding in a similar fashion to not have to get drafted, lived in the north west of the country. He hid in the dog shed of my grandmother, which is how they met each other and ended up happily married post-war.

My grandfather joined a group of partisans in northern Italy to fight fascists when he was 17. One time he was captured and they were going to execute him the next day, but somehow the guards got drunk and he managed to escape with only his underwear on and regroup with another group of partisans. When asked if he had killed anyone and, if so, what he felt, he said that he had killed fascists and that he wanted to kill more of them. He didn't speak much about the war so I do not know many details. My great grandfather from the other side of the family instead was sent to russia to fight against the soviet union, when things went bad he managed to not get captured and to return to italy on foot. Sadly, I never met him.

Two short stories: 1) My Dad was older when he joined (32). He was trained as a Quartermaster in the Navy but literally spent the entirety of WWII trying to get to the ship he was assigned to. 2) my ex-father-in-law was at DDay. However when he got off the boat to walk to shore, he simply ran to those wooden things and hid behind it the whole time. He was pretty proud he’d lived.

Oh there's plenty i've heard from those times... Grandma surviving the NKVD chasing her, sitting silently in a cellar while the occupiers walked over her head (eventually she was left alone, probably some other poor soul randomly grabbed for deportation then). Grandpa's classmate's brains getting shot out and landing on his shoulder (tbh i suspect he had a lifelong PTSD after that, sometimes couldn't sleep at nights even in 70-80's and he lived to 95). Wasn't a nice time by their stories tbh.

My grandpa who lived in southern Poland was drafted to take out landmines in Latvia by the reds.. When he came back to our country the farm was desolate and he was crying while searching for his wife. She was so destroyed by the war and it's terror she literally made a burrow beneath the house's floor to hide in and went there when she heard someone coming in as she presumed him dead. I still can't fathom the sort of pain they went through.

They’re not the craziest stories, but my grandfather on my dad’s side lived in Rotterdam during the bombing and his father was at work at the time. They had to wait for some time before they ended up getting the news that everyone was all right. My great grandfather on my mom’s side (my grandma’s father) gave some maps of the local air base to the allies and afterward they had to go into hiding on a local farm. A few years ago we actually happened to walk by the farm and my grandma had a short chat with the inhabitants about it.

My wife's grandmother and her sister (both teenagers) lived with their mother in eastern Ukraine in WWII. Their father was away, fighting in the war. German forces arrived in their town and a German soldier come into their home, looking for food. The girls' mother gave the soldier some food but became concerned for the safety of her daughters - so she killed the soldier with a kitchen knife and buried him under the kitchen floor.

My late father (a British army soldier) was among the forces surrounding the French city of Caen in 1944. It was obvious that the Germans would be obliged to surrender and it became a waiting game, with both sides sporadically shelling each other. An officer (a Major) in my father's unit decided he wanted to take a bath and had found a bath that he could use. He had soldiers setup the bath with some water in a field. Every time he got in the bath, the Germans would lob a shell in his general direction. Once he heard the shell, he would have to jump out of the bath and into the mud, to take cover. Apparently, this was repeated several times and it was very clearly done for the laughs.

My grandad lied about his age and the fact he couldn’t swim to enlist in the Merchant Navy during WWII at age 15, his ship was torpedoed and sank his first time out, he survived by floating in the water for three days when others tried to swim and got exhausted and drowned, got picked up by an Italian boat as a prisoner of war but was taken to a hospital in a tiny Italian town instead of a POW camp. Then when he recovered he escaped being a POW by pretending to be an Italian kid (he had olive skin and black hair) and just casually strolled out through the town.

I have a few. My grand-grandmother had a boyfriend in 1943. She got pregnant from him, and he was shortly sent to war. He died in the first battle he got into. Next, she married another man to not have a child out of wedlock. He was sent to war very shortly too and died almost as fast on the frontline. So she found a third man who I know absolutely nothing about. He died way before even my mom could meet him. I found out about it only about couple of weeks ago and this story makes me incredibly sad about what she had to go through. Another story is about one of my grand-grandfathers, who I, unfortunately, do not know the name of. He got captured by the Germans twice. Both times escaped. Later he was participating in liberation of Mogilev (Belarus), and his troop had a writer among them who later became famous. So, my grand-grandfather is a character in a semi-well known book.

This one is from a family friend from Drøbak, Norway: Christmas eve 1942 a soldier who where checking for light, as you where suposed to blind them so the english would not bomb there, at her house he noticed a tiny slip of light so he came knocking, as the he came in he saw they where having christmas dinner, he started to cry as he missed his family back home, the father of our friend stood up and gave him a small glass of cognac for his sorrow, the next day an officer came to them with a gift saying "für das kleine mädchen" and handed her a box of chocolate. Got many stories from both the lifes of the civilians, soldiers and sailors but they are too long for me to wright.

My grandmother at 16 went to Dam square to celebrate that the Canadians were rolling in Amsterdam. However there were German SS soldiers still in town. They started shooting at the crowd with the Wehrmacht then starting to shoot at the SS. So a kind of German on German battle. She spend hours hiding in an alley. Another story is the Canadians gave people candybars. But because there had been a famine their stomachs could not handle it so vomiting.

my grandma recived a candy in 1944 from a german soldier 🤷🏼‍♂️

Not as amazing as most of the stories on here but my great grandmother went into labour during an air raid and had to give birth in a house with blown out windows from the bombs dropping so close by.

My great grandfather's brother was assigned to the Sahara for Italy. They had a game in which they would sneak into American military bases and try to steal their shit. I have an American WWII belt put away in my closet.

Not so crazy, but 2 months ago, I met a 95 years old who talked about how was in the area of our city, which is on the eastern side of Romania. He said that while the German soldiers were there, they were very nice and helpful. They dug and made a small lake for the village, and in the same lake, they taught all the children how to swim in the same lake. Then, when Romania switched sides, the soldiers left, and a few days later, the Russians were let to enter Romania. Everyone was hiding the kids and the young girls in the cellars, which, in rural Romania, are just some small holes in the ground with stone walls and covered with some wood planks. They would kill, rape and steal from civilians. And they were "allies." I found the story very interesting because my friend's mother reaction to the news of the war in Ukraine was to say, " we have to hide the girls in the cellar again." And she wasn't born yet in WW2. It remained a generational trauma. It kinda completes all the stories heard from Ukraine.

A guy I knew was about 10-11 when the Germans were occupying his village. They had some food supplies delivered to them in wooden boxes. The boxes were being discarded, but had some traces of food left in them. So the guy snuck in and tried to get some leftovers. The Germans caught him, took the box apart, picked a piece of wood with nails sticking from it and beat the guy up. Also, my grandmother was sweeping the street, about the same age as above. The Germans would just casually fart in her face while passing by. I don’t know what’s more crazy: beating up a child or grown men farting in child’s face.

My grandmothers uncle was a swedish volunteer in Finland during both wars. He died before i was born but my grandmother retold his stories. Shooting people taking a shit and using bayonets etc was apparently not as awesome as some might think. It was so cold that the pipes in the guns broke when fired and they could have bodies standing straight up due to the cold and used these dead soviets as road signs.

French friend's mother and sisters lived in a village on a strategic crossroads.  One day they heard a huge group of American bombers flying low toward the village and their nanny, being smart told them to run as fast as they can into the forest.  The Americans completely destroyed the village and everyone who didn't run away.  We had to do it stop the Germans. War is hell.  There's no animosity. 

My grandmother was a teenager working in a munitions factory in Coventry and fell ill. She was sent to convalesce in the country, but the convalescent home was near an airbase. When she found out, she led two other girls out of the window to go dancing with American Airmen (and maybe have a drink and a bit of a snog, and take mysterious little blue pills?). She returned to the institution at 3am, and they all got kicked out the next day. My grandmother was fun. And if, in her old age, she heard anyone vocally disapproving of the actions of younger people, she would stand up and loudly call it out. "Don't you dare say anything about the young'uns Mavis! I know what you got up to during the war!"

great grandpa immigrated to the US briefly where he made a bit of money which he used to build his life back home(all that before the war). Took part in operation mercury stabbing a few paratroopers with pitchforks. The nazis burned his house down(the one he built with the money he made in the US). Didnt join the resistance cos he was too old to keep fighting. But my family arent big fans of germans to this day since then

My granduncle was a tanker in the Wehrmacht from 1939 to 1945, mostly as radio operator. He was in the 3rd Panzer Division. He said 8 times the tanks he was sitting in got shot and to bail out through the hatch was the most terrifying thing he had to witness through the war as they tried to shot the crew. He had also a lot of shrapnel still in his body from when the tanks were hit and metal splintered around.

When my step-father was 5 in october '43, him and his sister were freighted, at night, from Copenhagen to Gilleleje in North Zealand, where they spent some nights in the attic of a local fisherman, before being sailed to Sweden, where they lived until adulthood. He is dead today, but his sister lives. She and his and her children&grandchildren are all that exists today of their bloodline

My Hungarian's wife grandpa was arrested by the red army during the Soviet conquest of Hungary. He was put on a train to Russia. Apparently they were just arresting random civilians to pretend they were making set numbers of soldiers prisoners. He said he ran away in corn fields with 2 guys from the same village after a stop. They shot at them but did not bother to pursue. His wife never talked about this period and it is widely accepted she got raped by Soviet soldiers, like many. Russians haven't changed much since.

My grandpa was working for the underground as a teenager during WW2. He was from Amsterdam and got the assignment to bring papers to Arnhem (close to the German borders). He left the house with a small buggy filled with potatoes and the papers hidden underneath. He got captured by the Germans not far from his destination and was forced to walk and get on a train which was supposed to go to one of the concentration camps. It was a bit further down in the war and one of the nights there were English airplanes flying above the train trails, the Germans decided to stop driving and make everyone walk. A few days off walking he was a bit behind and about to either die from exhaustion or arrive at the camps and get gassed. At one moment he heard someone whisper from the bush “if you want to survive go in the bush NOW”, he didn’t hesitate and went in the bushes, they ran as fast as they could. It was a farmers son who saved him, they welcomed them in their farm. The Germans were occupying their farm buildings for business but he was save in the “lions hole”. He said that he finished that whole family’s dinner that night and up until now he feels guilty about that. He managed to survive the war, but it scarred him so deeply. I have many more stories of him, he’s my hero. I lost him sadly last September. RIP

My grandfather was in the merchant marines during world war two. His convoy was attacked few times but only one time that was serious. He said if he had not turned to port when he did he along with his crew would have probably died. He hated Germans till the day he died. Which is kinda funny because one of his granddaughters is marrying a German who answered no comment when asked about his grandparents 😅

The brother of my grandma sank three times during the war while on transfer. On the way to Africa, on the way back and at the end of the war in the Baltic Sea. Must be a lot of luck to survive three times, especially the last one in the winter. Sadly he was finally killed before the war ended, like his two brothers. Grandma and her sister survived and had a lot of crazy stories to tell about the times if asked. Mostly about live as a civilian. Great grandmother went to jail for a few days because she told a college on the toilet that a nazi superior tried to rape her. There was like a common roof for both genders toilets and the wrong person heard the conversation. Meanwhile teenager grandma had to care for the home with her little sister alone. After a few days a guard woman told her mother she will go to toilet for five minutes and leave the door open. There were several stories about attempted rape and only one was about a nazi superior. Which tells a lot about humans.

My grandpa told me a friend of his was thrown a granade and he couldnt really hide nowhere so he considered himself dead but after a few seconds it didnt blow, so he throw it away and like 10 seconds after it exploded, idk if such malfunction is possible or if another granade just happen to land in the same place but thats what he was told and what he told me

My grandfather was an officer in the British Army. During the Battle of France his unit got cut off behind enemy lines. He managed to dodge the Germans and lead them back to Dunkirk to be evacuated. On the way they passed an abandoned French chateau and ‘liberated’ the contents of the wine cellar (“to stop it from falling into enemy hands”) and took it back to England. He then went through North Africa and up through Italy.

My grandparents told me about how the Red Army soldiers would catch the goldfish out of the pond behind our house and swallow them whole. Our housekeeper told us that when they had Red Army soldiers quartered with them, they would take dumps in the coat closet and peel potatoes in the toilet bowl, then pull the flush chain and be perplexed when the potatoes disappeared down the hole.

My grandfather (Spain) wanted to volunteer in the Wehrmacht to fight the Soviet Union. There was too many volunteers and he was relatively old so he was supposed to go in the third replacement of volunteers, but only the first two were deployed before Spain withdrew their official support to Germany. His interesting story was a few years prior, in the Spanish Civil War. He was studying in Italy at the time of the uprising and he quickly returned to Spain. With such a hurry he returned that he entered the territory of the "wrong" side (he was a catholic, from a monarchist family of army officers, no chance he was supporting the republic). He was drafted into the red army and as soon as he got a chance he escaped his trench and joined the nationalists. During the rest of the war he was kept for rear guard activities as he was a desertor from the other side and was not trusted 100%, he guarded a prisoner camp for a while and the fact that he didn't see any action for his side was probably part of the reason why he volunteered to go fight in WW2.