I wonder how any of us would live with such a legacy?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18120890

I have German friends (mostly a generation younger than me) who get very defensive and dismissive if the subject of WWII comes up (eg on FB). They say the deeds and complicity of their grandparents' generation should be forgotten.

Being British and born just as the War had ended, and knowing many people whose lives were defined by that experience esp by being in POW and Concentration Camps, or who lost family inc fathers they never knew, my response is always 'Lest we forget...'

I knew survivors in Israel, inc a couple of archaeologists on the dig were I worked, who would not even speak to a German even those who had come to volunteer in appeasement of their parents' crimes.

Yet I don't think I would shun an individual who carried one of these names... if I'd been directly involved - in a camp for example - I'm not so sure. Gut instinct is so very powerful in such a scenario.

And I guess it's different for younger generations, and for Americans who were so far removed from the daily realities. In Europe, WWII still casts a very long shadow

Amen!

I have people in my family who were Nazis. (I am also part jewish). It is a very complicated history. I cannot even imagine the extent of what these people go through in order to get past that heavy burden, knowing their relatives did that.

My grandmother was a victim of WW2. She saw and experienced first hand of the horrors of war. She did not judge a race of people because of a persons individual action. 

We tend to forget if we were in a situation, to kill or to be killed, our instincts would be to save ourselves. I do not support war, but we must look at it in a different side thats not part of ourselves.

My great grandfather was a solider of WW2 and was sent to a POW camps, like the rest of my family. Most of my family died in those camps. I have no, bad feelings towards any race. Just the war itself.

(((milano)))

My family from central europe were all in America by 1880's but there are plenty of victims with my maiden name in the shoah DB.

My husband (1st generation American) has a relative who was shot by the Gestapo for forging papers for a Jewish couple in Nisko Poland. He's not on the list of Righteous though.

The BBC did a piece on Lord Haw Haw's daughter that was interesting.

I wonder why people think that they can only love someone if they also love every action that person has done.

You can love your ancestors and respect the hard decisions they made, while still thinking they were greviously wrong. 

I totally agree with @blessedwhitney.

I also think, at some stage, you need to put that burden down. No good can come from carryng it forward & perpetuating the grief. This is not to say it should ever be forgotten- that's not my point! But at some stage, these things must be laid to rest.

I think this is eighth house stuff. The answer isn't so cut and dry.

True @milano... nothing 8th House ever is

The horrors of arrogance, prejudice, bias and ideas of supremacy were well documented in WWII.  So my question now is why after witnesssing the horrible woundings and suffering, continue to sow arrogance, prejudice, bias and ideas of supremacy?

Spritual arrogance is still arrogance.  Spiritual bias is still bias.  Spiritual prejudice is still prejudice. 

If we don't like what we reap in effect, then why are we still sowing the same seeds?

POSSIBLY COMMENTROVERSIAL

To take this in a different, related (in my mind) direction, I get my hackles up when I hear/read black Americans who have an obvious chip about slavery.  It was awful, it happened, but, speaking as a po' white girl from the upper South, I can't continually apologize for what my great-great grandfathers may have done.  I'm not a racist and I've never owned slaves, so the immediate enmity and condemnation from some really irks me.

/rant