I was talking to him when I read the earlier post about the pic NOT being SS... he said that was an early pic, before he qwas ‘Promoted’... but, he just now said that his g-father Never killed and Jews.. not what to make of that, nor whether is G-father would admit to it... I am just happy he is talking to me again..
Took me many years to get him to go this far.. I lost him in about 45 seconds because of comments here... I encouraged him that most people here are interested in history.. and would not hate him because of something that happened 70 years ago. First thing he said when I was able to get him to talk again.. ,”they hate me”... :/
He couldn't be more wrong.
Not true Bik. When I was a two year old Army brat in the early fifties, my baby sitter was a former Hitler youth girl. She had married a US soldier after the war, and wound up stationed at Fort Ord, California. My mother still speaks fondly of her to this very day.
Once the war was over, it was over. Don't forget that a lot of US servicemen who died fighting Hitler, were first generation German Americans themselves. They went to war to fight an evil, not a people.
A lot of the SS were not directly involved with what happened to the Jews. They may have not even have been at Melmedy as was believed.
There is a quote from a man who was in the SS who knew what was going on but was repulsed by it. He stated years later, “There were those who did not know what was going on, and I do not know there fate. There were those who knew what was going on and didn’t think it wrong, and I suspect I know their fate. Lastly, there are those of us who knew what was going on, knew it was wrong, and did nothing to stop it, and I suspect I know our fate.”
It was entirely possible to be SS and not have been in the purification units.