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Why some Germans look at Syrian refugees and see themselves
bbc.com ^ | November 19, 2017 | BBC

Posted on 11/18/2017 11:34:02 PM PST by Berlin_Freeper

Between 1944 and 1947, an estimated 12 million ethnic Germans fled or were expelled from their homes. Overshadowed by the crimes of the Nazis, their stories have often received little international attention. But these days, as Bethany Bell reports from Germany, the new arrivals from Syria have awakened old memories about what it means to flee.

Christa Nolte carefully lifted a little book out of a box of family papers.

"This is what my grandmother, Anna, took with her when we fled," she told me. "It was important for her to save it."

It was a pocket-sized Lutheran hymnal, the Silesian Church's Songbook.

Christa was a war baby, born in April 1943. Her family came from the town of Goldberg in Silesia, which back then was part of Germany. Today it's in Poland.

(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...


TOPICS: Germany
KEYWORDS: refugees
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1 posted on 11/18/2017 11:34:03 PM PST by Berlin_Freeper
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To: Berlin_Freeper

The war in Syria is pretty much over now. Just saying.


2 posted on 11/18/2017 11:49:54 PM PST by Vince Ferrer
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To: Berlin_Freeper

good post -

but enquiring minds want to know will Merkel chuck Seehofer and form a minority gov’t with the TreeHuggers & the not-quite libertarians ?

will Seehofer see the light at the last minute today ?


3 posted on 11/18/2017 11:52:00 PM PST by vooch (America First Drain the Swamp)
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To: Berlin_Freeper
I think the headline is incomplete.

'Why some Germans look at Syrian refugees and see themselves as DOOMED'.

There. Fixed it.

4 posted on 11/19/2017 12:02:24 AM PST by CivilWarBrewing (Get off my back for my usage of CAPS, especially you snowflake males! MAN UP!)
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To: Berlin_Freeper

Shared Jew-hatred?


5 posted on 11/19/2017 12:08:25 AM PST by Slings and Arrows (My music: http://hopalongginsberg.com/ | Facebook: Hopalong Ginsberg)
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To: vooch

Seehofer has a lot of inner party fighting to deal with.


6 posted on 11/19/2017 12:13:31 AM PST by Berlin_Freeper (Happy Nobama!)
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To: All

Given that the Germans killed members of my family, impoverished them and destroyed and the country I was born in (then left it to the communists), my pity for Germans is exactly - NIL.

Oh I have no problem with individual Germans (so long as they are well-behaved, and most of them are), I just will never have a warm fuzzy for Germany as a concept - or for the German language, the mere sound of which sets the hair on the back of my neck standing up. (And I was born after the war.)

So if the Germans wish to commit national suicide by importing several million unassimilable Mohamedans, I wouldn’t care - except that via the G-D vehicle called The EU they have thus imported them into ALL of Western Europe, as well as bullied other nations into doing the same.

At this point I’ll refrain from commenting further lest my language get me in trouble.

The West is doomed. DOOMED. In the long run, it will be up to the Far East to save civilization from the savages.


7 posted on 11/19/2017 12:18:28 AM PST by Simon Foxx
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To: Berlin_Freeper

Thanks for posting, BF. The German diaspora at the conclusion of WW II is not well known at all. My paternal Great Grandparents had left Cologne in th e1890s and moved east to Danzig. They lived only a couple of miles from Westerplatte where the war started in 1939. Six years later, the Red Army marched into Danzig and threw all the Germans out. They were told to pack and leave by sundown. They were in their sixtiees when that happened and they left their factories and home behind. They lost everything but their lives. They walked back to Cologne and lived only a few years more in a shack in some friend’s backyard. My grandparents had left Germany in 1927 and didn’t experience it.


8 posted on 11/19/2017 12:30:40 AM PST by ProtectOurFreedom
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To: Berlin_Freeper

That was 3 generations ago. I don’t think very many remember it personally.


9 posted on 11/19/2017 12:38:38 AM PST by Telepathic Intruder
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To: Vince Ferrer

What about the Al-Nusra Front and other non-ISIS jihadi groups? Have they also been destroyed? Will the Assad government and the Kurds be able to coexist peacefully? Or will Assad try to subjugate the Kurds?


10 posted on 11/19/2017 12:55:01 AM PST by Czech_Occidentalist
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To: Berlin_Freeper

indeed - but will he compromise today before 1800 ?


11 posted on 11/19/2017 1:42:36 AM PST by vooch (America First Drain the Swamp)
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To: Telepathic Intruder

many recall it vividly -


12 posted on 11/19/2017 1:45:12 AM PST by vooch (America First Drain the Swamp)
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To: vooch

No doubt many still remember. But that hardly explains the German mindset of sympathy toward refugees when they’re outnumbered 1,000 to 1 by people who have never seen a day of war.


13 posted on 11/19/2017 1:57:56 AM PST by Telepathic Intruder
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To: Berlin_Freeper

All of the Germans fleeing were the elderly and women and children. Almost all of the Syrians fleeing are military age men.


14 posted on 11/19/2017 2:30:54 AM PST by HenpeckedCon (Covfefe Trump!)
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To: Telepathic Intruder; vooch

To differing degrees these sort of traumatic life experiences get passed down a generation or two.


15 posted on 11/19/2017 2:41:56 AM PST by Berlin_Freeper (Happy Nobama!)
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To: vooch

or get the hell out of Dodge!


16 posted on 11/19/2017 2:43:28 AM PST by Berlin_Freeper (Happy Nobama!)
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To: Berlin_Freeper

The BBC is trying to be the caliphate’s pet western west outlet when Eurostan falls.


17 posted on 11/19/2017 3:21:20 AM PST by jmaroneps37 (Conservatism is truth. Liberalism is lies.)
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To: Berlin_Freeper
This is total BS (a word that I've never used before here at Free Republic)! I can hardly begin to explain why this is nonsensical!

But for starters: German refugees didn't flee to other countries. They fled (either because they were "bombed out" of their residences in the big cities or because the Soviets were invading) to other regions of Germany - where they were usually viewed with contempt, distrust, and at best pity by the local Germans. Also, they received minimal support from the State.

Read "The German War," by Nicholas Stargardt.

Regards,

18 posted on 11/19/2017 3:30:24 AM PST by alexander_busek (Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.)
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To: Simon Foxx

Wow...excellent post. Thank you


19 posted on 11/19/2017 4:23:44 AM PST by rrrod (just an old guy with a gun in his pocket.6l)
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To: alexander_busek
But for starters: German refugees didn't flee to other countries.
Immaterial. They were still war refugees on the run for their lives. Whether it be for shelter or safety from shooting/bombing/etc.

As to how they were treated. Regardless of what you read many were taken care of. Maybe not by government, as that had collapsed due to losing the war. I have read accounts of even soldiers getting clothes from civilians so they could blend in and avoid detainment.

20 posted on 11/19/2017 4:42:13 AM PST by Berlin_Freeper (Happy Nobama!)
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