The Daily Populous Sunday April 28th, 2024 morning edition
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Trickycoolj on April 27th, 2024 at 18:38 UTC »

I bought a coffee table book that showed my grandparents town in Germany before and after the bombings. I sat down with my grandma who was only a little girl at the time. She pointed to a photo of rubble and told me that was where her school was. She was 7 and her and her friend had the wherewithal to soak their dress aprons in water to make a mask to try and run home to find their mom’s in the bunker. 7 years old. After the war she said one school in the town remained standing and they all took turns going in shifts. It really changed my perspective on the civilian side.

YoungJumanG on April 27th, 2024 at 18:38 UTC »

The worst part is I’m sure he was thinking if he had only been there he could have somehow changed their fate. Reality being he would have probably joined them

GyspySyx on April 27th, 2024 at 19:47 UTC »

My grandfather ran an underground railroad to get Jewish people out of Ukraine and was caught and put into slave camp. My grandmother and their two daughters (my aunt and mom) were taken to another camp. At the end of the war, he believed they were dead, and they believed he was dead.

They went to America; he went back to Ukraine. And then one day, over 15 years later, the Red Cross found him, and he came to America, leaving his new wife and two sons behind. And their sons fight for Ukraine today.

Through the years, there have been millions of stories like this (very simplified) one. Of families forever torn apart and marked for the life by both the obvious and not so obvious, by both the horrific and the seemingly trivial effects of war.

Millions. And so few of them get told outside the families fortunate or cursed enough to have lived to tell them.

Oh, and generational trauma is very, very real, too.