World War II in 10 minutes or less
Dec. 8th, 2004 08:41 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
valarltdObi-Wan Chrisobi has a brilliant and inquisitive mind. He may be flighty, but he wants to know things.
Today, he wasn't home from school 2 minutes when he asked "Mom, what was World War II all about?"
I said it was complicated, but I would do my best.
"You can't understand WWII without knowing about WWI. When the Allies won WWI, the French put heavy burdens on Germany as a condition of the peace. Their money was worthless, everything was horrible. It was horrible all over the world because of the Depression, but Germany was really horrible. In the late 20's and early 30s, a man named Adolph Hitler rose to the leadership of a small political party called the National Socialists. They gained a lot of power, and eventually took over Germany. The Nazis fixed the German economy, but exacted a terrible price. Hitler had very strong ideas about who was human and who was not. Blond Germans were human beings. Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, and others were not. So he had those groups put into prisons called concentration camps, and the Nazis killed them. Six million Jews and millions of others were killed in less than 10 years.
But it was the expansionist policies that really caused problems. Europe is small, compared to the United States, and very crowded. So, the Germans, the Real People, needed Liebensraum living-room, space to spread out. So, Austria? Mine! Poland? Mine! Denmark? Mine! Alsace & Lorraine? Mine! Holland? Mine! France? Mine! Italy was run by Hitler's ally Mussolini, so he got to keep his country. Russia? Mine! (Except that Russia was too big a bite for the Nazi War Machine to chew, and the winter choked them out and defeated them)
Even so, The USA stayed out of things until on December 7, 1941, the Japanese bombed us at Pearl Harbor Hawaii. Our servicemen were mostly asleep, and the bombs came and blew up their ships, and them too. So that launched us in. And because Germany was Japan's ally, they declared war on us too. So we got together with England, France and Russia and fought them. And won.
Until just before your Mom and Daddy were married, Berlin Germany, the capital, was still divided into American, French, English and Russian parts. The Russians built a big wall around their part, called the Berlin Wall.
We only won in Japan because we dropped 2 nuclear bombs on them. They surrendered.
Your great grandpa on my side was in England with the Army Air Corps and worked on the radio in a bomber plane. Your great grandpa and grandma on Daddy's side were in the Pacific, as was your Grandpa Bob's brother.
Obi was pretty amazed by all the information.
I suspect he may do some reading on his own now. He loves nonfiction
Today, he wasn't home from school 2 minutes when he asked "Mom, what was World War II all about?"
I said it was complicated, but I would do my best.
"You can't understand WWII without knowing about WWI. When the Allies won WWI, the French put heavy burdens on Germany as a condition of the peace. Their money was worthless, everything was horrible. It was horrible all over the world because of the Depression, but Germany was really horrible. In the late 20's and early 30s, a man named Adolph Hitler rose to the leadership of a small political party called the National Socialists. They gained a lot of power, and eventually took over Germany. The Nazis fixed the German economy, but exacted a terrible price. Hitler had very strong ideas about who was human and who was not. Blond Germans were human beings. Jews, Gypsies, Slavs, and others were not. So he had those groups put into prisons called concentration camps, and the Nazis killed them. Six million Jews and millions of others were killed in less than 10 years.
But it was the expansionist policies that really caused problems. Europe is small, compared to the United States, and very crowded. So, the Germans, the Real People, needed Liebensraum living-room, space to spread out. So, Austria? Mine! Poland? Mine! Denmark? Mine! Alsace & Lorraine? Mine! Holland? Mine! France? Mine! Italy was run by Hitler's ally Mussolini, so he got to keep his country. Russia? Mine! (Except that Russia was too big a bite for the Nazi War Machine to chew, and the winter choked them out and defeated them)
Even so, The USA stayed out of things until on December 7, 1941, the Japanese bombed us at Pearl Harbor Hawaii. Our servicemen were mostly asleep, and the bombs came and blew up their ships, and them too. So that launched us in. And because Germany was Japan's ally, they declared war on us too. So we got together with England, France and Russia and fought them. And won.
Until just before your Mom and Daddy were married, Berlin Germany, the capital, was still divided into American, French, English and Russian parts. The Russians built a big wall around their part, called the Berlin Wall.
We only won in Japan because we dropped 2 nuclear bombs on them. They surrendered.
Your great grandpa on my side was in England with the Army Air Corps and worked on the radio in a bomber plane. Your great grandpa and grandma on Daddy's side were in the Pacific, as was your Grandpa Bob's brother.
Obi was pretty amazed by all the information.
I suspect he may do some reading on his own now. He loves nonfiction
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no subject
Date: 2004-12-09 08:32 am (UTC)When my nine year old was two, we used to pass under a bridge every day on the way to her daycare provider. Somebody had scratched a swatsika into wet cement one day and Sandy asked me what it was. I simply couldn't formulate that much ugliness to someone that young, so I told her that it was very, very bad and she shouldn't look at it. She very studiously diverted her eyes from that every day for the next few months until someone from the city came to remove it, and every day I felt worse for what I had done. If we deny the Holocaust, we deny the lessons we should have learned from it. So when Sandy heard the name Slobodan Milosojevic on NPR, she asked what that was. I told her that he was a very bad man who was killing people, but that the UN would stop him from doing that. She had nightmares for months that "Milosojevic was coming to get her!"
Sometimes there is no right answer when you're a mother. And sometimes, there is. Thanks for this post, for reminding me that we moms do get it right on occassion.
*hugs*