I read this on the off topic thread, having being alerted to it by Joe's reference to it in a post. Sorry in advance for creating a thread on it's own but this little piece really moved me and although BeddyTare is one of the Mods and wouldn't move it, I felt it should be put up for people to read incase they don't dip into the off topic stuff. It reminded me a little of my trip to Kenya last year and with all the diving and gesturing, abusing and accusing going on in our game and our world, I wanted this highlighted. This is BeddyTare's story. Have a read; faith in humanity. I Visited Germany as a boy as my Step father was part of the occupational forces for a while. I was taken to a place in Germany called Dresden. I was taken there with a few other lads and lasses to teach us something about war we were told. This was just before Christmas 1947 I was barely 5. What I saw that day has stayed with me all my life as it has the others. We were watching people queueing for food. We stopped out side a schoolhouse. Which was just a large house that had been patched up with rubble as a border for a playground. That was where our school bus parked and it drew attention from the locals. Now we as children had been told about what we now know as concentration camps and about the Holocaust. We had though actually been to a centre of rehabilitation where there was still some men and women yet to be rehabilitated with their homes. Your imagination can work out how emancipated they were and the state they were in. So back to our trip to Dresden. One of the questions we asked as children Why were these people and children still here why had they not been repatriated to their homes. Of course it was because these people were not dissimilar in looks to the refugees we assumed they were refugees. Truly they looked no different. We were shown around mainly rubble to be quite fair. There was a huge rubbish tip on the outskirts that seemingly had thousands of people on it (Remember I was only 5) The whole area was pretty well flattened with hundreds and hundreds of just burnt out shells of houses. We eventually walked back to the school bus and although the crowd of adults had mostly dissipated there were probably around 30 or so adults and the same school children in the make shift school playground or sitting on the rocks. The most eerie thing I remember was the quietness of the whole area.....No birds or animal sounds just a kind of silence. (Similar to Belsen and Auswitch area's) The adults were not talking just shuffling around. The children in the playground began to kind of talk and to climb on to the rocks and rubble to sit and just stare. At this point our teacher said we should eat our packed lunch. Which contained a couple of Sandwiches a biscuit with currents in a cake with icing sugar on it an a sweet cherry on the top Also a couple of pieces of fruit. (first time even I had seen icing sugar and a sweet cherry not that I got a chance to eat it as i will explain) It was a lovely day so Me and few others went out side our coach to sit down and eat our food. My little friend Sue came and sat beside me and spread her travel blanket on the big brick and we started to take out things from our goodies bag one by one. Suddenly there was gasps and shuffling all around us. We looked up to find every one in a circle around us adults kids the lot. Then a commotion and shouts as suddenly some of the older boys and girls in our group with the teacher pushed there way through to us. The eyes on those children were like saucers and some of the adults too. It was as if they had never seen door step sandwiches before. At this point we hadn't got any of the biscuits or cake out yet. For a while, we just by now standing, mid bite of a doorstep. Looking into the children's eyes. Somehow believe or believe it not we did not feel frightened the whole thing was just weird with this kind of gasping noise silently in the back ground. I know that sounds daft but I don't know how else to describe it. I took the sandwich away from my mouth and went over to this tiny little girl the smallest one around she was like a rag doll. I broke off part of the sandwich and offered it to her. The silence now was deafening. For a while she just looked at it, then at me several times,nobody said word. Then the most gorgeous smile and she took it. You Could see by the way she ate it she was very hungry. The next thing I know was the rest of the coach had come out onto the road and was doing the same. The whole atmosphere changed. We made sure everyone got at least something they all were so hungry, children and adults alike. Finally it was time to head home so we said our goodbyes. I was the last one on the coach that afternoon.....Just as I was about to board the little girl come running over and said something I couldn't understand, other than the word Danke.......She gave me such a hug and I hugged her back. What on earth I can hear people say.......I have read certain individuals posts on this thread and others like it expressing their hate for the Germans. Nobody can deny the Holocaust or any of the horrors of world war two. You also will get for the rest of history those that will always feel that the Germans should have been wiped out. Just as you will get some Germans saying much the same thing about us. What the Germans did in the world was handed back to them 3 fold, short of the Holocaust of course. The German people suffered tremendously. You might argue well they asked for it, may be they did. However their children and children's children did not!! It is with them the same as with us we have to build a future without wars. Germany is a strong nation that has worked hard to get back onto its feet economically it is doing very well. It is inevitable that anyone who has a reasonably strong economy in the European zone is bound to be a big influence. Being in Europe economically is the best thing for the UK in my opinion we need them as much they need us. It is true I don't like them interfering in our laws but it is the same for them ....So why not us.......
A friend was a civil servant who was one of the first to arrive in Berlin after the end of the war. She often spoke of how harrowing it was...especially in the Russion-controlled sector as they were completely out of control, raping and killing without punishment. She recounts the story of a woman offering her wedding ring in exchange for a bar of chocolate. My friend gave her the chocolate but refused the ring...there was a brief period when the woman tried to insist rather than take charity. She probably had to use the ring later to get her next meal. The German infrastructure had broken down before the Allies arrived...it shows how fragile our society can be with so many living in cities and away from the actual source of food.
