I am Maddy. I am 16 years old. When asked what I am most interested in I would have to say Ww1, ww2 and the Bosnian conflict. For the past 5 years, I have been so interested in those wars. I only read war books now. And so it was reading the book City of Thieves that led me to this site. Just for a background reference, this book is set during the siege of Leningrad. The characters were talking about the Einsategruppen and so I googled the Einsategruppen. Wow! It led me to read all about the Babi Yar massacre and the other one in LatviA that the name escapes me. It is hard to belive how people could shoot other people into mass graves and then bury them. Many half alive. What a horrid way to die! So many of them. So I was just contemplating a whole bunch of thoughts in my head and wishing I could tell them to someone. So I grabbed my iPhone and cound this place. I was just contemplating about if I would die the death of being naked and half dead buried alive under bodies if I could erase one of these massacres. I am thinking I would ( although thats easy to say when I dont have to face that) because there are so many people who would be around today if those massacres did not happen. Like grandchildren of these people if they hadnt been killed. I was also thinking about the Einsategrupen themselves and how they could do that to people. What if they we the Jews? How could they not see the it all? I do feel sorry for even them. They mustve had some horrors going on in their lives too. I also wish so much that I could be a spectator in those times. I'd like to see how Leningrad looked becore it was called St. Petersburg. Id love to walk down a street and see the women with their hairstyles back then and the simple elevant clothes they wore. I am curious to feel what is is like to not eat for days on end. Life was so different.. People were so much more independant without all this technology we have controlling our lives. And i also wish I could meet my relavtives for back them. The Russians, ItAlians and Slovenians. Oh how I dream of those days. It is all i think about......
I actually will be when I get some time of school this winter. I decided to gather some information from my grandparents and great aunts and uncles and then maybe make a little book. It is good to do, since they are all in their 80s now
Learning your family history is awesome. You learn so much about why your family kept and lost certain traditions. What they went through that brought them to where you may be now. I have a lot of fun learning about my Roma and Irish gypsy backgrounds. It is nice that you are starting early. Its great to meet a young mind who wants to learn and is taking it upon themselves to do so!
So true Kiamoko. I started by asking my Italian grandmother and she is going to write it all down for me. It is super fascinating learning about all sorts of relatives. Apparently I had a great- great uncle who lived to be 99.5 years old and died from a broken hip.. Little things like that are so interesting. And then there are the bigger things that involve war and hardships. I would love to be able to live a day in the life of a great grandparent or a grandparent during the war. I have read so much about those days And I would just love to see what it was actually like
Speaking of Babi Yar, have you seen Yevgeny Yevtushenko's poem about the massacre? He is one of my favorite Russian poets, and that work is actually how I was introduced to the history of that massacre; we read it in Freshman Comp II. Here is a link to one translation of it: http://remember.org/witness/babiyar.html If you Google his name and the name of the poem (which is "Babi Yar"), you can find a YouTube video of him reciting it.
I just watched the video of him reciting it in English and then one in Russian. I watched the English one 3 times. It sure is a strong poem. Thanks so much for introducing me to it. If I ever go to the Ukraine with my Ukrainian uncle, I would make sure to visit the monument. This is really tragic but it's amazing some of the prisoner escaped: http://history1900s.about.com/od/holocaust/a/babiyar.htm
People outside the former USSR believe that only Jews were murdered at Babi Yar. A total of 150,000 were massacred, and the majority of them were Slavs (Russian / Ukrainian). Tens of thousands of Jews, as well as thousands of Roma also lost their lives. The exact number of people who were exterminated, and their respective nationality will be almost impossible to obtain, as the Nazis had burned the documents in order to destroy the evidence. According to Jewish organizations 33,771 Jews died in Babi Yar. Roma claim that up to 200,000 of their kin lost their lives in Babi Yar, but it is quite hard to verify their claims since the Soviet authorities counted only a part of the nomadic Roma population in their censuses.
You should look for reinactment groups. There are some that live like it was the past for days, weeks and months at a time. It is really fun and educational. You can sometimes even pick your name and so you could find a relative you'd like to be and use their name and background for a week. I think you would really like this!
Thats so interesting. I looked these groups up and there don't seem to be any in my area but it would definetly be something to keep in mind. Thanks! Have you done this or know anyone who has?
Welcome to Militarian, Maddy. I hope that you benefit greatly from our forum and enjoy yourself here. If you have anything to say, feel free to post and share your thoughts/opinions; we listen.
