When I was in the ninth grade of high school my English teacher showed us a film of WW2 and the atrocities committed against the Jews. I blacked it out immediately after seeing it, I was so disturbed I repressed all the images. A couple of years later they surfaced and it was part of the reason of the onset of my mental illness. We are sensitive people and very disturbed by Hitler, I think it’s common. Anyone relate?
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What about what the Japanese did to Asians like pulling their fingernails and teeth out one by one?
I watched this in my teens …
I also watched many documentaries how the Soviets won the NAZIs in my childhood.
WW2 was nasty, but history is a disaster story in many ways. There was war, slavery, death, disease, cruelty. All that stuff still exists today in countries around he world.
But good stuff happened in the past too. Try not to focus on just the negative. Learn from it, do what you can so it doesn’t repeat itself, and move on.
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The Glorious Red Army destroyed Hitler
My grandfather fought in WW2.
He was a pilot.
Saw some action,
But survived.
He still has all his old military stuff.
In his 90s now.
Not a nice man, but we’re all proud he served.
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My grandfather was a medic in WW2. He saw some fcked up sht and refused to talk to my dad, or anyone else about it. He survived the war but died before I was born so I never met him. I have some German money from the time period that he brought home with him.
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My grandfather fought in Greek navy and was
locked in a Germanic camp in africa where he
learned the basics of communism
My uncle served in WWII. He brought back a German rifle (Mauser) off some dead SS soldier he killed. My uncle gave the rifle to my father, who pawned it a year later. One of a laundry list of ducked up stuff my father did.
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I can relate to being sensitive but not to having a low tolerance for witnessing other people’s suffering.
I think we shouldn’t confuse those things.
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I’m Jewish, and one of my recurring nightmares is that I’m a Jew in Nazi Germany, and I’m trying to hide, but they know how to find me.
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Generally, I could read about very disturbing historical episodes without being too emotionally disturbed by them.
TTI makes me vomit over minor stuff, or stuff that I hardly blink at, having read about it before.
If you read a lot of history, it is common not to be an emotional mess, while reading. Throughout history many people have been awful to themselves and others. That’s the dark side of humanity. That’s life.
Although, personally. I found a segment on Emmett Till more emotionally disturbing than anything else in history class. (I live in America.)
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I watch a lot of documentaries about history, some showing vile and heinous behavior. When I watch those documentaries for the first time, I am disturbed by them, but as I watched more and more of them I become desensitized to the violence.
I’m very concerned that human beings can become desensitized to horrible acts of violence.
I feel very ashamed of being a German American because of Hitler. I had no defense except that I wasn’t a part of it, personally.
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I’m part German myself. A distant uncle lived underneath Nazi rule for some time. He owned a general store and was pressured to join the Nazi Party. He resisted for a bit, and then his store was vandalized repeatedly until he gave in and joined. He would later say he had to make a choice, and joined the Nazis so as to save his livelihood. So he was basically a member without supporting the ideology.
This was before my mental illness, back in college.
It makes no sense for you to be ashamed, honestly. The fact that you are means that you have been wrongfully socially conditioned to be so, as you haven’t done anything. Most mentions of Germans in America relate to the Nazi era and its atrocities; very anti-German environment.
America needs to take responsibility for its own misbehavior. It likes to avoid doing so, by shifting focus onto Germany.
I had a Hitler delusion, but I still don’t feel guilt for what the Nazis did. I don’t think guilt is useful, anyway, as it clouds one’s judgment, and is actually counterproductive. Some Germans feel so guilty for things they didn’t even do, that they become antisemitic to relieve some of their guilt, turning to the Palestinian cause to feel righteous.
Generally, I felt that Hitler had been framed for the “Final Solution,” and that a disobedient underling, Himmler, had been behind it.
Regarding T4, I took comfort in the fact that although Hitler had given permission for the operation, he had also ordered that it be ended, even if he wasn’t obeyed. Also, I blame the family members of the victims and medical staff, neither of whom were punished much (if at all), more than I blame Hitler, for what happened.
I cried over Dönitz and Hess. I cried over von Clausewitz being banned in Germany. I avoided reading a book on the fall of Berlin.
My dad’s friends brother was captured in the Vietnam War. He was a doctor. They put him in a 5ft tall concrete box for 4 years.
He was never the same after that.
War is horrible.
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