Let's talk WWII memoirs or journals/diaries or otherwise first hand accounts, any nationality or type of experience (military, civilian, prisoner, etc).
Some talking points:
Did you have to read any first-hand WWII accounts in school? Are there any you think should be taught in schools but typically aren't?
What are some first-hand accounts that have stuck with you? Any you didn't care for?
What are your thoughts on the censorship or editing of first-hand accounts, such as the initial censorship of Anne Frank's diary? Is it harmful to censor or edit these accounts--particularly if the person died during the war--or is it ever acceptable?
Isn't that picture on the cover of German troops storming Norway?
>>916957
Yep! Makes for a dramatic cover though.
Well i always got the Memoirs of my grandgranddad from ww1 and the time before it and the accounts of my granddad from ww2 till 44, to read. Too bad he quit writing in 43. On the topic of editing, if it is a firsthand/memoir then editi g by someone else than the author especially with an agenda behind it, is absolutely disgusting
>you will never be a lonely tuvan soldier fighting for your soviet overlords against the advances of the barbaric huns
>Did you have to read any first-hand WWII accounts in school?
Everyone was assigned the Diary of Anne Frank in middle school, and Night in high school was assigned if you took the elective English class after 10th grade.
>Are there any you think should be taught in schools but typically aren't?
I'd love for schools to branch out and tackle different first-hand accounts other than the standard Anne Frank diary. I get why it's so accessible--you can teach pre-teens about the Holocaust without getting too gritty--but the diary is so romanticized and sugar-coated at this point that it loses its poignnacy. If I hear the diary called "hopeful" or "forgiving" one more time...
>What are some first-hand accounts that have stuck with you?
I honestly can't remember who wrote it, but it was a first hand account from a girl (Polish, I think?) who recorded eavesdropping on her family talking about what to do if the Germans rounded them up as they were rumored to be doing in other towns, and she talked about how her grandmother was silent for most of the conversation, then finally pounded her fists on the table, and said softly that if they knew the Germans were coming to deport them, it would be better to smother the baby, kill the children, and then kill themselves than be taken.
>Any you didn't care for?
Can't remember their names, but several memoirs that were written for "school audiences" that are very bland and After School Special and were more about giving basic facts than talking about their own experiences.
>>917252
>What are your thoughts on the censorship or editing of first-hand accounts, such as the initial censorship of Anne Frank's diary? Is it harmful to censor or edit these accounts--particularly if the person died during the war--or is it ever acceptable?
It depends on the reason for the censorship, and whether or not that censorship is acknowledged in the book. I can understand Anne Frank's father not wanting to publish his daughter's thoughts on her vagina or her unflattering comments about her mother and other people. To be honest, Anne herself would have probably gotten rid of those if she had lived to publish the diary, since most of the censored material comes from the notebooks which she didn't yet have time to rewrite for publication. But was it right to censor it? It makes her record incomplete. At least now we have the full journals published.
If the censorship or editing is done for agenda reasons (like Night's English edition softening his language about raping German women after the war) then it bothers me. Let the text stand for itself.
I actually remember a reading class book I was assigned, and while I don't recall the name it was about a Japanese family being placed in a prison camp during WWII times. That's a little tidbit they like to glaze over in history class, so I'm thankful I know it.
I can't recall the entirety but, knowing that it's something brushed over or not mentioned at all is kind of a tell and helps me maintain skepticism about how history is explained by biased parties.
i read i ' m fifteen and i don't want to die
is better that anne frank and the kike books about ww2
>>916940
What was the one book written by some german grunt in the eastern front? It would supposed to be really brutal, and it was actually a journal found on a guy who died on the front that they published
Also, the cover on OPs book is from the German invasion of Norway. I only know this because I just saw that picture today by chance
>>916940
Sledge's book is one of the best soldier memoirs I've read. It's obvious that he's very intelligent and presents things in ways not seen in a lot of memoirs.
>At first glance the dead gunner appeared about to fire his deadly weapon. He still sat bolt upright in the proper firing position behind the breech of his machine gun. Even in death his eyes stared widely along the gun sights. Despite the vacant look of his dilated pupils, I couldn't believe he was dead. Cold chills ran along my spine. Gooseflesh tickled my back. It seemed as though he was looking through me into all eternity, that at any instant he would raise his hands—which rested in a relaxed manner on his thighs—grip the handles on the breech, and press the thumb trigger. The bright shiny brass slugs in the strip clip appeared as ready as the gunner, anxious to speed out, to kill, and to maim more of the “American devils.” But he would rot, and they would corrode. Neither he nor his ammo could do any more for the emperor.
>The crown of the gunner's skull had been blasted off, probably by one of our automatic weapons. His riddled steel helmet lay on the deck like a punctured tin can. The assistant gunner lay beside the gun. Apparently, he had just opened a small green wooden chest filled with strip clips of machine-gun cartridges when he was killed. Several other Japanese soldiers, ammo carriers, lay strung out at intervals behind the gun.
>As we talked, I noticed a fellow mortarman sitting next to me. He held a handful of coral pebbles in his left hand. With his right hand he idly tossed them into the open skull of the Japanese machine gunner. Each time his pitch was true I heard a little splash of rainwater in the ghastly receptacle. My buddy tossed the coral chunks as casually as a boy casting pebbles into a puddle on some muddy road back home; there was nothing malicious in his action. The war had so brutalized us that it was beyond belief.
>>917433
>that last part
Jesus
>>916940
I'm old enough to have grandfathers who served in the Wehrmacht, so I could listen to first hand accounts at home. Unfortunately I was too small to have any meaningful questions at the time. They stuck to me in the way that I am a conscientious objector instead of having served in the Bundeswehr (i.e. civil service instead). I cared for all of the stories, the funny ones from the western front and the gruesome ones from the eastern front.
As for literature, there's a shitton of books if you speak German. Lots of regiments have their war history in books, just read the one for my paternal Opa's unit. Was as clear as it gets, no censorship, nothing political, just straight facts. Heavy shit really. It's a miracle he survived that, more or less sane, too.
>>917437
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bZ2CiACbmM
>>917252
>Night in high school
Did Elie Wiesel visit your school too? I remember he walked around my Social Studies class, showing everyone the numbers tattoo'd on his arm.
>>916940
>What are your thoughts on the censorship or editing of first-hand accounts
Wasn't Anne Frank's diary censored by her father?
I know government censorship was rife and that the Office of War Information actually kept a file called the 'Chamber of Horrors' that housed photos of dead Americans and other images they felt the public would be sensitive to. I don't remember any books/memoirs being deliberately censored though, as they generally didn't come out till after the war.
The Soviets did censor books, documents, and all scholarly works during and well after WW2. All that accomplished was to damage the credibility of nearly 50 years of Soviet history. Now that the archives are finally open modern historians are finding errors in such prestigious works as Zhukov's own memoirs, thus casting doubt on the mountains of work that claims it as a source.
>>917452
Was kinda bummed that Snafu wasn't represented as he was in the book. In the miniseries he's more of an amalgamation of several guys, for example in that scene Snafu stops him from taking the teeth but in reality it was a medic.
>>917479
Japanese books were censored by the Americans in the first postwar years. Mostly books where authors were writing about the horror of the war and the need for peace.
>>917476
No, but one if our teachers fathers, who was Russian, came and talked about his experiences in A POW camp
My great grandfather fought during the Winter War and Continuation War. He wrote a couple books about his experiences in the front lines, my grandfather also gave me his war diary for me to read. It isn't brutal or anything, if someone had died he simply stated that "x person fell today". It also has some realy nice drawings, I didn't know he liked drawing before.
My grandfather was also a UN peacekeeper for most of his career, he hasn't been in battle situation, but has landed on IED's while being transported. He's quite proud of never having to shoot his rifle and solving dangerous situations with negotiating.
>>917452
I watched that knowing I should not
>>917433
I've been meaning to finish reading this. I don't know why I stopped in the middle. I'd like to read Leckie's book too. I was so blown away by The Pacific miniseries, and each time I read a passage where it was obvious that Spielberg had taken some liberties with the story... it kinda disappointed me. But, I still think it's the most realistic, brutal representation of war ever on film. Better than Band Of Brothers.
>>917516
I think it was just hard for them to mash several separate memoirs together. With BoB you had one book and one unit. With the Pacific they had to jump around as the Marines rotated in and out.
I have high hopes for the next miniseries. 'Masters of the Air' is a good read too.
>>917488
America had enough influence to censor Japanese books? Or because of the war crime trials?
Was it censorship by omission like Omaha beach? http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1960/11/first-wave-at-omaha-beach/303365/
>>917538
>hurrrr you shouldn't be affected by graphic depictions of real life violence based on military campaigns thar brutalized everyone involved
My god, the edginess is just pouring out of you. You are so cool.
>>917552
I just don't understand why you "should not" have watched it. I mean, if you didn't want to watch it, don't watch it. But, you watched it. You watched it because... you knew it was fake, and you had a natural human curiosity. So, why then report that you "shouldn't" have watched it? What makes you feel that you shouldn't have? Was it a sin to watch it? Are you a bad boy now?
Not trying to be edgy, or cool... just trying to understand how your crazy brain works. Help me understand.
>>917419
kill yourself then
>>917552
Are you brutalized now, because you watched a scene?
>>917537
American occupation after the war, they had the power to approve or censor publications.
>>917570
Why do you think it's unusual for people to be affected by what they read and see? You sound like a sociopath.
>>917537
It could be total censorship or partial censorship. To get anything published, it had to be submitted to the SCAP/Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, which had tight control over all forms of media. They banned the discussion of a lot of things, including the atomic bomb, any criticism of SCAP, criticism of allied countries, criticism of war or military actions regardless of 'side', any praise of "undemocratic" governments except SCAP itself, and discussing any allied political/diplomatic relations. You couldn't publish anything about the atomic bomb until 1952 after their control ended.
this poem for example was banned:
I do not accept war’s cruelty.
In every war, no matter how beautifully dressed up,
I detect ugly, demonic intent.
And I abhor those blackhearted people
who, not involved directly themselves,
constantly glorify war and fan its flames.
What is it that takes place
when people say “holy war,” “just war”?
Murder. Arson. Rape. Theft.
The women who can't flee take off their skirts
before the enemy troops
and beg for mercy--do they not?
In fields where the grain rustles in the breeze,
sex-starved soldiers chase the women,
like demons on the loose.
At home they are good fathers, good brothers, good sons,
but in the hell of battle,
they lose all humanity
and rampage like wild beasts.
>>918825
you're fucking lair, US have fredoom of speech and democrasy, it's evil gommies banned all true stories about the war
>>918848
>Blatant racism and trolling will not be tolerated, and a high level of discourse is expected.
>>918852
>commie apologist trying to hide the truth again
how typical for dirty commie
>>918739
I don't think it's unusual for people to be affected by what they see. My father did two tours in Vietnam, and was very affected by the movie We Were Soldiers.
He cried. But, he didn't leave the theater saying "I should not have watched that". He wanted to see it, and he even took his 12-year-old son to see it.
Are you a war vet? Probably not. But, even if you were... would you be too traumatized to answer your door on Halloween?
"That kid was dressed like Frankenstein's monster, I knew I should not have given him candy... I'm so affected now. Waaaaaaah."
I used to have a hospital job that included wheeling dead bodies out the loading bay. Somebody's gotta do that job at every hospital in the country. Somebody has to perform surgeries, somebody has to perform autopsies, somebody has to be a dentist and smell your rank-ass breath. What good does it do us for people to be so "affected" by the natural processes of life? Grow up. Watch The Pacific, it's a brilliant piece of cinema, an excellent miniseries despite it's historical inaccuracies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=147lf7XPgA8
>>919277
You're projecting so much here. You're the one that needs to grow up.
