I am in two minds about wanting to read that book. Yet I think in a way, I would.
No-one I knew who had been through the war mentioned it to me AT ALL! Not even my mother. And she told me almost everything about what happened in the war. Those were my 'bedtime stories' when I was a child! She pulled no punches either. My favourite book was "Britain at War"; published either during the war or just after. My favourite picture was bombs being transported into a rocky looking shelter! I was about six years old.
And no one mentioned the mass killing of cats and dogs.
However I do know that my mother's family, who had cats, kept them. (Although there was no mention of being expected to put them to sleep.)
Her Aunt also had a dog, because she would tell me that when the V1s came over, her Aunt would get the dog and her child under the table and then lie on top of them. So there must have been some choice in the matter....
However it does go to show that masses of people are willing to do what "authority" and "peer pressure" tells them to do. That is a chilling fact, and still relevant today. That is the cause of so many German people willingly and cheerfuly doing what Hitler and his henchmen told them to do.
Rebels are few and far between.
No-one I knew who had been through the war mentioned it to me AT ALL! Not even my mother. And she told me almost everything about what happened in the war. Those were my 'bedtime stories' when I was a child! She pulled no punches either. My favourite book was "Britain at War"; published either during the war or just after. My favourite picture was bombs being transported into a rocky looking shelter! I was about six years old.
And no one mentioned the mass killing of cats and dogs.
However I do know that my mother's family, who had cats, kept them. (Although there was no mention of being expected to put them to sleep.)
Her Aunt also had a dog, because she would tell me that when the V1s came over, her Aunt would get the dog and her child under the table and then lie on top of them. So there must have been some choice in the matter....
However it does go to show that masses of people are willing to do what "authority" and "peer pressure" tells them to do. That is a chilling fact, and still relevant today. That is the cause of so many German people willingly and cheerfuly doing what Hitler and his henchmen told them to do.
Rebels are few and far between.
