[Unknown]

[gamemasterAS]

I have a new favorite member. Marty where did you learn all this? Get any sort of history degree or are you just an avid reader on the subject?

[martyg]

I have a new favorite member. Marty where did you learn all this? Get any sort of history degree or are you just an avid reader on the subject?

It comes with the territory of being raised in an orthodox Jewish family, and having members that were deeply effected by it. You start to take an interest in understanding them better. Plus, that's just me - I do serious and heavy research on anything I'm involved in, whether it's video game industry history, political discussion, or things like this.

We also had family members effected by the soviets as well. (My family background is German, Russian, Latvian, Romanian, Polish, French, and Spanish). I was told of some of the younger men in the Russian (Kiev) part of the family being hauled off through the fields forced to join the Russian army and never heard from again. If you've ever seen Enemy at the Gate, the beginning sequences give an example as to what it was like and why.

That uncle of mine (technically a great uncle) lead an interesting life. As a child he grew up a town right on the border of France and Germany (in fact it always kept on going back and forth under ownership). When the Germans started to invade France, his mother put him on a cart full of people to try and get him out. They never saw each other again until the 1980's, each thought the other was dead until he managed to track her down living in the US as well. From France, he made it to Spain and fought in the Spanish civil war. From there to England and joined an all Jewish unit of the British paratrooper/commandos. (Yes, the UK used to segregate divisions). He used to paratroop in to Nazi territories, blow up bridges, that sort of thing. Helped liberate one of the camps as well, and still had extreme nightmares of his experiences until the very end of his life. After WWII, he fought in the Israeli independence war (1948) before moving to the US. If you saw him you wouldn't know any of that background, he was a little guy. Had a hot temper though. Irony of it all though is that after all that war, he wound up dying an old man playing bingo, had a sudden heart attack (no he didn't win, just happened during the game).

[gamemasterAS]

Thanks for the stories, I love WW2 history. However what I read is never really centered on one thing or another. A lot of the time I just go from link to link on wikipedia.

[robm]

Try reading Schindler's List. Maybe not a great informational on the political workings of the time, but certainly a great source of information if you want to know how it was like during that time period.