Oral histories: What was it like during the war, mum?

But there's another side to this that the Brits and Aussies didn't understand. The kids who fought that war had just come out of a decade and more of some grim poverty. Now their nation was at war, and their government spared no expense or effort to give them the best of everything. In that sense, it was Fiddler's Green for them, too.

In 1942, Tucker was discharged from the war and returned to a Melbourne he did not like. He was particularly disgusted, but inspired by scenes of Melbourne’s nightlife, of a city he felt demonstrated a collapse of simple morality. He was shocked and outraged by images of schoolgirls trotting home to reappear wearing skimpy miniskirts made from Union Jacks and American flags, ready for a wild night in St. Kilda with the drunken American and Australian soldiers. In response he painted Victory Girls, an impression of American soldiers

My grandparents moved from Denmark to Sweden and the whole family became Swedish citizens. At that time my father was 12.
By the time he was 18 he got a letter from Denmark saying they did not want him as a soldier as he might be spying for the Swedes and on the same time a letter from the Swedes saying they did not want him as a soldier as he might be spying for the Danes.
A few months later my grandfather got a letter from Denmark saying they were looking for my father as a deseter. And a letter from Sweden saying the same.
Now my father wrote to both countries and got the same answer from both - choose whatever country you want to be a soldier in.
He choose Sweden at that time and later during WWII was a soldier in Sweden.

She had lost her brother and his three best friends, one of whom she was in love with, had served with devotion in the VAD (Voluntary Aid Detachment - women who volunteered to nurse the war-wounded under the aegis of the Red Cross), and, at the war's end, was near a nervous breakdown from grief and overwork. .........


... she withdrew from Somerville and began nursing the wounded, and the grimmer her work, the more dedicated to it this hitherto sheltered young woman, who had never put her hand to any physically disagreeable task, became. One can only feel awestruck at the courage and endurance that she and her fellow VADs discovered in themselves.

Then came the deaths: Leighton's, her brother's and those of their two closest friends. They turned Brittain into a committed pacifist. There had always been sane instincts in her even when she was at her most romantic: she had never, for example, demonised German soldiers whose deaths she knew were as pitiful as those of Englishmen, and her objection to society's attitude to women was always steady and sensible. Now her future path was determined, although it was some time before she could see it.

Unter Bauern: Saviors of the Night -- Film Review
By Ray Bennett, August 20, 2009 01:51 ET


Bottom Line: Remarkable real-life story of German farmers who helped hide Jewish friends from the Nazis.

German cinema's growing number of films willing to address topics relating to World War II has a fine addition in Ludi Boeken's "Under Bauern: Saviors of the Night", which tells of farmers -- unter bauern -- in Westphalia who sheltered Jewish friends from the Nazis.

The appearance at the end of the picture of characters whose real life stories are related to the subject adds depth to a production filled with emotional power and a constant sense of dread. The film will find an international welcome from audiences who wish to add to their knowledge of the time and appreciate a riveting human drama well told. ...<cont>

Sounds like you have access to a lot of fascinating information!

Any old photographs from that time?

Quote:

The Brits used to say that there were three problems with the Americans: they were overpaid, oversexed and over here.

So did the Australians! What a coincidence! There might well have been some truth to this theory!

Checking out your link now, Setanta.