Stories of World War II

One of the things about my new site is that some of the PCVs here are a bunch of nerds. We participate in a lot of nerdy things (including one PCV designing a Macedonian version of Risk, among other things).  But it seems that an obsession for three of us is World War II.  Understandably, World War II was a terrible event that ruined the lives of millions around the world.  Yet many continue to be fascinated by the war, indicated by the amount of books, documentaries, television shows, video games, etc. generated by it (especially when compared to any other war in the past century).  The possible reasons for this queer obsession can be equally numerous: the scope and scale of the destruction, the frighteningly effective use of technology in warfare, its simplistic representation of Good versus Evil, or its lasting effect on the world order.

One of the ways in which my sitemates and I nerd out over World War II involves watching Amazon's answer to the alternate ending of the war, "The Man in the High Castle".  The series offers an interesting perspective of the United States had the Allies lost the war, and had Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan successfully invaded the USA.  Otherwise our energies for this common interest are concentrated on playing Axis and Allies, a much more complicated version of Risk that was shipped to my sitemate a few weeks ago.  The diversity of units makes the rules complicated, the duration of the game is typically very long, and a pre-ordained assignment of alliances (the Soviet Union, Great Britain, and USA vs. Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan) eliminates the balancing component of a typical Risk game.  To most the game may seem like a waste of an evening, but honestly we look forward to our typical Wednesday sessions.

These Tetovo nerds

I am not sure what intrigues my sitemates about World War II, but personally the worldwide impact of the war is what interests me the most.  Since the war barely touched the shores of the USA, many American were lucky enough to avoid experiencing the destruction of the war.  Thus throughout most of my childhood, I rarely heard the personal accounts of those who experienced the carnage of the war, even though my grandparents immigrated to the USA following it.  Yet as I travel and live abroad, I have had the fortunate opportunity to listen to the first-hand accounts of many people and their experiences across the different theaters.  What I learned most is that, even though we are taught that the Nazis and Imperial Japanese were the epitome of evil, many of the soldiers who served under these cruel regimes were very human.  Many of the people I spoke with described German or Japanese soldiers well.  The more difficult lessons were facing the truth that my grandfather chose to live in Nazi Germany (Austria) and confronting the reasoning behind why any colonial subject would fight on behalf of any empire. 

So, instead of collecting the stories for myself, I decided to share them with the world through this blog. 

The Lesser of Two Evils?

Growing up, the most connected I ever was to knowing about my relatives during World War II was that of my grandfather and grandmother.  When describing my grandparents' early years, my mother would often share the interesting fact that their flat in Munich was located along the same block as one of Hitler's flats.  She had no way of confirming that, and I had no reason to doubt it.  Yet this unconfirmed truth goaded me into learning more about my grandparents.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I was finally able to learn about my grandfather during my trip to Lithuania from his sisters in Kaunas.  They told my mother and me that he had left Kaunas without his father's permission to study in Graz.  During that time he met my grandmother, and I assume from there they moved to Munich until the war's end.  My grandmother, on the other hand, was born in Dingolfing, a small town close to Munich.  Like many other German cities, Munich was heavily bombed toward the close of the war.  I can imagine that my grandparents may have resorted to escaping to my grandmother's hometown when the violence in Munich was at its peak.  But like many other Germans, they lost much due to the destruction of the war.

Immediately following the war, my grandfather encountered some trouble with the Soviet Union.  I do not know enough details to share the account with confidence, but supposedly my grandmother helped my grandfather escape confinement, and eventually the two immigrated to the Chicago in a neighborhood inhabited by plenty of other Lithuanian immigrants or Lithuanian-Americans. 

My grandfather in his running gear (pics stolen from my mother's Facebook)

My grandparents in Germany

Gathering in Europe

For some time, I always wondered what my grandparents' attitude was during the war.  Obviously the Nazis were evil, but I often wondered if it were possible to live a better life under the Nazis versus the Soviets.  While my grandmother was born in Germany, my grandfather decided to move his life there in the middle of the war.  He must have made a calculated decision to leave what was then the Soviet State of Lithuania for Nazi Germany.   Luckily for him, his move to Germany during the war likely allowed him to immigrate to the United States.  Throughout most of his life until the 1980s, he was restricted from visiting Lithuania, lest he risk being imprisoned indefinitely by the Soviet Union upon his arrival.  His sisters, on the other hand, lost much of the land that they owned in Kaunas due to redistribution.

The Other Theater

While my grandparents on my mother's side willfully lived under Axis rules during the war, the relatives on my father's side were caught under Japanese rule.  My family never really shared much about my grandparents during their time in the Philippines in World War II, but fortunately during my recent trip to the islands my aunt shared with me much about our family history.  While the Japanese occupation of the Philippines was tragically brutal for the American and Filipino soldiers, especially during the Bataan March, life for ordinary citizens did not seem so bad. 

My grandfather was already in his 30s when the war reached the Philippines, and despite the Japanese occupation he continued to work in a mine near Baguio (northern Luzon).  According to my aunt, the Japanese soldiers were very polite.  She shared a story about my grandmother, who wished some Japanese soldiers "Konban wa" one morning, and the Japanese soldiers giggled in return (she basically said "good evening" during the morning). 

My grandparents on their wedding day

Unfortunately, I never listened to a first-hand account of the war on the Japanese side, even though I briefly studied in Japan during my college years.  However, Japanese sensitivity to privacy is so developed that I think asking that type of questions during my short stay would have been culturally inappropriate.  My good friend from Peace Corps, Ted, mentioned how his grandfather was likely a soldier in Manchuria during the war and may have perished there, but he also did not seem quite sure on the details.

I did receive a darker account of the Pacific theater which took place on the other side of the Japanese Empire.   During my trip to India in 2013, I met my best friend's grandmother who surprisingly began to share with us her late-husband's experience in the war.  Burma was officially a British colony until the Japanese began to invade it in 1942.  Most historians would say that Burma was merely a buffer state (like Georgia in colonial USA), serving to stall an invasion of India, which was the crown jewel of the British Empire.  Thus, the Japanese promised independence to Burma once the British were evicted, and they even trained the "Thirty Comrades" (one of which included Aung San, the father of current political leader Aung San Suu Kyi) to serve as the leaders of a rebellion force. 

My friend's grandfather served in part of the resistance force that fought against the Japanese Imperial army and the Burmese rebellion groups.  He served as one of 2.5 million Indians who fought during the war (the third largest Allied invasion force into Italy was Indian).  Yet, as the Japanese pushed into Burma, he was forced to retreat to India.  His wife shared how he and his fellow soldiers traveled for days through the Burmese jungles, and he was one of the very few who managed to return to India alive.

In the Balkans

While the inception of World War I began in the Balkans, during World War II the fighting in the region seemed to be a sideshow compared to the battles to the North.  The Balkans were comparatively more stable since, with the demise of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the creation of Yugoslavia became possible, and Albania was eventually annexed by in Italy in 1939.  Thus, fighting in the Balkans during World War II did not center around ethnic issues (ie. Serbian nationalism in World War I which led to the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand), but instead began once Italy invaded Greece.

At first, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia was briefly allied with the Axis powers.  However, two days after signing a pact with the Axis leaders, the Yugoslav government was overthrown in a coup d’état.   The German Nazis immediately decided to invade Yugoslavia, joined by forces from Hungary, Italy, Romania, and Bulgaria.  Surprisingly, the Axis forces suffered very few losses since the Yugoslav military was not prepared for the invasion.  The Axis invasion lasted a month, and the Yugoslav army unconditionally surrendered in late April.  Yugoslavia was then divided among the four major powers, with Italy annexing parts of Slovenia, Montenegro, and much of Kosovo, Hungary annexing part of Northern Serbia (which already contained many Hungarians), Germany annexing part of Slovenia and setting up puppet states in Croatia, Bosnia, and Serbia, and Bulgaria annexing much of Macedonia.

During my last visit to Lozovo, I was able to talk with my host grandmother about her time during World War II.  She was a little girl then, and she lived in the Eastern Macedonian town, Kriva Palanka.  Similar to the account from my aunt about my Filipino grandparents, my host grandmother's description of the Germans seemed pretty benign.  She mentioned how a few would sometimes visit her family's house to ask for food, sometimes merely bread, since many of the German soldiers were often ill-fed. 

The situation only intensified when the tides turned and the Nazis were on the defensive against Yugoslav rebels and the now-Allied Bulgarian forces.  At that point, it was too dangerous to remain in town, so many of the Macedonian civilians fled into the mountains where they waited out the end of the fighting.  My host grandmother shared how she slept on a dirt floor in an abandoned house in the mountains, sharing the space with a few other families for the course of 3-4 months.  Men would often travel into the lowlands to retrieve whatever food they could find for the citizens' survival. 

With my host grandmother from Lozovo

Losing the Lost Generation

As those who lived through the war slowly pass away, I try to take every opportunity to learn about their experience of such a globally impactful event.  By the end of World War II, the world would be so divided, and mobility across different spheres would be so restricted that globalization seen in the 19th and early 20th century would cease to exist until my generation's time.  I enjoy these stories because, even though each individual, whether soldier or civilian, was simply living his or her life, each was a unit of either the Axis or Allied side (ok, or lived in a neutral state).  Today people are often so awed by the military achievements and destruction of the period that they often forget to ask those who are still living about their individual experiences.  The few accounts that I have heard impress me with the normalcy in which people lived despite being surrounded by such destruction.  Ultimately, it impresses me how they view their situations so locally while they shared a common experience with millions across the globe.