A long, long time ago I worked security for a major university. An old Italian janitor worked in one of the buildings I patrolled.
He was a little old guy, and he spoke broken English. No one paid much attention to him. After all, fancy university professors didn’t have the time to talk to lowly janitors!
Well, I made time to talk to him. Eventually he opened up to me. Turns out that he was a WW II vet. But not on our side. He was a member of a Waffen SS unit that was raised in Italy. He did not surrender when Italy surrendered. He stuck with the Germans, and fought in the Battle of Berlin.
I don’t think I would have wanted to meet him when he was a young man.
It was the loss of those professors. He could have been an important source for a book or scholary paper. Some assistant professor who befriended could have been famous or at least received tenure!
“Well, I made time to talk to him. Eventually he opened up to me. Turns out that he was a WW II vet. But not on our side. He was a member of a Waffen SS unit that was raised in Italy. He did not surrender when Italy surrendered. He stuck with the Germans, and fought in the Battle of Berlin.”
Had a few conversations with a Polish guy. Was 17 or 18 when Germany invaded Poland, got just a few days of training then was captured by the Germans, was from an area of Poland that had swapped between Germany and Poland several times over the years and spoke German. After an interrogation the Germans decided he was German an into the German army he went. Fought on the Eastern front in the German army. He could tell things weren’t going well and deserted. Slowly made his way across Ukraine, Poland (picking up some ability to speak Russian and Ukrainian along the way). Made it into Germany near end of war tried to get to Western front to surrender to Allies but was picked up by police not to far from the front and placed in a camp. Before anything bad happened camp was overrun by US army. After being interviewed by US army he is offered a job as an interpreter since he spoke, German, Polish and some Russian and Ukrainian. Having nothing better to do he joins US Army (he is allowed to again because of language skills)after the war is over (now in his third army). Korean war breaks out and he winds up with a tank unit near the China border just before China joins the war. Tank unit is subjected to Chinese human wave attack and starts to pull out he argues that they can fight it off based on experience against Russian army while in German army. Few of the Chinese had guns most just hoes and shovels so not even as well equipped as Russian troops. But unit pulls out anyway. He made it thru 2 different wars as part of 3 different armies. Not something he set out to do just happened.
SPJNK !!!
Even if it was decades ago.