WWI Centenary, 11th November 2018

BowdonUK said:
It's been a good turn out locally in my small town. The crowds seem to grow each year as we remember the sacrifices past generations have given for us.

The amount of people wounded and died is nearly inconceivable today. BBC on a programme last night showed a map with rows of houses and dots on the houses that lost people. Whole streets and communities were impacted. I can't imagine the trauma of living in that community must have been like.
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The pals brigades really didn’t help with that, in a single action and entire street, club, business could have been wiped out, and the impact on the local community would be immense
 
I've done a bit of research into that inyourstreet thingy, my house was one of three on our street with someone killed in the great war.

Did a bit of reading up on him, really interested in it now, coincidence that the day he died was the exact day i joined the RAF 90 years later.

Anyone know how you research someone elses family tree? This fella was middle aged when he died so theres a good chance it has been forgotten about.
 
Blackjack Davy said:
I've never actually done that there is one not all that far away I think I'll do that at some point in the future.
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The poppy wreaths and crosses will be there for some time. You can always visit, look at them, read what people have written and pay you respects that way.

ttaskmaster said:
That's what they call it nowadays...
'Edgelord', though, never heard of that. So much for buzzwords.
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Not interested.
 
Yadda said:
I'll be paying my respects and watching the Remembrance Day parade at a local war memorial.
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Sorry to revive an old thread, but after reading an article about a group of Southerners in the U.S. who laid flowers on Veterans Day at the memorial to a Minnesota, (Northern) regiment that fought at Gettysburg in the Civil War, it reminded me of an exchange between my elder son and I recently.


He has lived in Germany for 30 + years, after marrying a German girl from the town where he was stationed in the army, I asked if he wore a poppy on November 11.
He said that he always has done, and will this year, even when he, his wife, and mother-in-law attend Alexanderkirche in Bielefeld for Volkstrauertag (German day of Remembrance), on November 14 this year.
He said, “As much as I wish to remember great-grandad’s service in WW1, grandad’s, (that’s my dad), in WW11, and my brother and mine in Northern Ireland and Germany, my wife’s grandad was killed in WW1 in 1918, her dad was wounded at Kursk in Russia, then captured by the Americans in Germany.”
He added, “They are or were all part of my family, and they should all be remembered, I’m a German citizen now, but I never forget that I was English first.”
 
@Jean-F i think a lot of people forget the average German soldier wasn't some horrendously evil despot. They were just another man fighting for their country, family and friends. Like most of ours.
 
Dis86 said:
@Jean-F i think a lot of people forget the average German soldier wasn't some horrendously evil despot. They were just another man fighting for their country, family and friends. Like most of ours.
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It's not really the same.

Those soldiers invaded their neighbours, often following bombing campaigns- Rotterdam, for example.

The German army carried out numerous atrocities against civilians as part of the occupations. From Greece, to France, Yugoslavia and particularly in the Soviet Union.

German soldiers in the Soviet Union could not be unaware of what was going on. They burned hundreds of villages in Belarus alone.
 
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