Oldest survivor of Baatan...

[Pam]

...death march dies. What these men went through. Mark had a customer who was also a survivor of this. They had some interesting conversations. God rest this man's soul.

http://bigpeace.com/stzu/2011/08/16/oldest-survivor-of-bataan-death-march-dies/

[Bill]

I had an uncle who survived the Death March. He rarely spoke of it and when he did, it didn't last long. The things that he was able to relate make you wonder how any of them survived the unspeakable cruelty they were subjected to. Until his death 10 years ago, he would not stay in the same room with a person of Asian descent.
I had another uncle who spent most of the war as a German prisoner of war. He never had anything bad to say about his captors and said that the guards didn't have it any better than the prisoners did. What a contrast.

[Pam]

Bill, God bless your uncle. And Mark told me that his customer died a few years ago. The cruelty they did endure. They had a right to feel the way they did upon returning. My own German father was also captured during WWII, and spent 5 long years away from his wife and son whom he'd never met. He was not as mistreated as many, and even talked about the farm he worked on.

[Bill]

It is remarkable that my family members that fought in Europe had no animosity toward the Germans. My father was in the occupation forces at the end of the war in Berlin and brought home boxes full of family photos he found lying in the streets, feeling some compassion for the people who lost them and salvaging them for some strange reason. Many were of soldiers from W W I. I have a good friend whose mother lives in Berlin, so I gave her the boxes of photos to take back with her in an attempt to make them available to anyone who might recognize the subjects of the photos as their friends or relatives. There was no interest, so she sent them back after over a year of being on tour at various libraries, etc.
Ironically, my mother-in-law was born and raised in Klingen and was one of 14 children. Three of her brothers were SS, none of whom returned from the war. The circumstances of their deaths have always been a mystery. All were believed to have died in Russia.
War has no winners. Some just lose less than others.