Today I Read (and Learned) ...

[tek-monkey]

Maybe we have a lack of skilled workers and should recruit from abroad?

 

[basil]

Maybe a whole nation have been shafted ?.....

 

[Theresa Green]

Between the rum and the ribena

 

[Gramaisc]

... about this bloke.

Rigas Feraios - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

He was on the Greek 10c coin that I got in the change from my weekly Lidl run this morning.

He had never heard of him before, but he seems to have been a bit of a lad.

 

[tek-monkey]

After a visit to the occupation museum in Riga I realised how much knowledge was lacking about how WW2 started, and the part the soviets had in it, so before work over my morning coffee have been reading up on the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.

 

[staffordjas]

After a visit to the occupation museum in Riga I realised how much knowledge was lacking about how WW2 started, and the part the soviets had in it, so before work over my morning coffee have been reading up on the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.

I've just looked it up , lots of reading to take in..... (and realising how little detail we were actually taught in school history lessons.)

(Only thing that really stuck in my head was my mate at GEC works saying her husband was freed by the russians from a POW camp . He had stomach problems ,from that day to the day he died ,after having to make their way across country to get back home eating any animals they could to survive after surviving for so long on hardly any food in POW camp)

 

[tek-monkey]

I've just looked it up , lots of reading to take in..... (and realising how little detail we were actually taught in school history lessons.)

(Only thing that really stuck in my head was my mate at GEC works saying her husband was freed by the russians from a POW camp . He had stomach problems ,from that day to the day he died ,after having to make their way across country to get back home eating any animals they could to survive after surviving for so long on hardly any food in POW camp)

Essentially:

Russia and Germany agree that Germany can have Poland and Russia gets the Baltic states (there is a lot more to this, but in very rough terms)
Both invade their relevant places
Germany keeps invading other places knowing they're safe from the Eastern flank
Germany decides it now wants the the Baltic states and invades them too, breaking their 10 year non-aggressive pact
Russia decides to swap sides
Russia takes back the baltic states at the end of WW2

I don't remember any of this from history, I just remember Russia was on our side, I can't remember any mention of them before WW2 officially kicked off. For the Baltic states they were invaded by Russia who killed anyone that said anything they didn't like, then by Germany who weren't quite as bad to the average person but murdered anyone looking a little bit Jewish, then by Russia again who killed anyone that did well under the Germans as they must be collaborators and 'arrested' 2.5% of the population over 2 days to refill their forced labour camps. There is a lot more, including family history from my wife, but thats the main gist of it from the side of history I was looking at last week (which is understandably anti Russian and that must be taken into account).

To a Latvian the only real difference between the Nazis and the Soviets was the uniform, unless you were a Jew. Both sides also forced conscription of Latvians to fight in their armies, illegal under international law but then so was most of WW2.

 

[Glam]

After a visit to the occupation museum in Riga I realised how much knowledge was lacking about how WW2 started, and the part the soviets had in it, so before work over my morning coffee have been reading up on the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.

I've just looked it up , lots of reading to take in..... (and realising how little detail we were actually taught in school history lessons.)

(Only thing that really stuck in my head was my mate at GEC works saying her husband was freed by the russians from a POW camp . He had stomach problems ,from that day to the day he died ,after having to make their way across country to get back home eating any animals they could to survive after surviving for so long on hardly any food in POW camp)

I can't remember being told anything about either World War when doing History in school. What I do know, I've found out over the last 20 odd years. Obviously I knew a bit about the Holocaust, but not how and why either War started.
All my schools concentrated on Henry viii and his cronies. Not what I consider very important in the grand scheme of things.

 

[tek-monkey]

I can't remember being told anything about either World War when doing History in school. What I do know, I've found out over the last 20 odd years. Obviously I knew a bit about the Holocaust, but not how and why either War started.
All my schools concentrated on Henry viii and his cronies. Not what I consider very important in the grand scheme of things.

We covered WW2 but it was most definitely only bits that directly affected us, there was hardly any info around it or the build up just Germany bad, big fight. But then how can you cover everyones history in 2 hours a week?

I'm very conscious of the fact Latvian history is mostly written after they kicked out Russia, because before then they weren't even allowed certain books etc, so much seems to be from the period of finally we got rid of the bastards and it shows. They are very anti Russia, despite having such a high Russian population which has visibly split the country in 3 (richest by far are Russians who choose to be there, then come Latvians themselves, then come the 'other' Russians trapped there at the bottom of the heap). We forget though the occupation is living memory for them, it is my wife's childhood, her grandmother hid in a wardrobe to avoid the big round up in 46 and deportation and her father has a medal from manning the barricades when the USSR fell in '91, so what we see as part of WW2 and hence history they see as their own personal past. Also explains why they are such strong supporters of Ukraine, they actually remember what Russian rule was like.

I'd be interested to see what the Russian side of the story portrays, but I don't really trust any country that bans opposition in elections to tell the truth!

 

[Gramaisc]

History, as taught in UK schools, and probably in other countries, is largely like watching a propaganda film.

 

[littleme]

My school covered ww2 extensively, we even had re enactment days where we spent the day in a ww2 air raid shelter with rations & gas masks (it was all brought in from outside & set up on our hall) we spent most of the time in darkness & with the noise of bombing & air raid sirens... It was horrifying.


Presumably our school predominantly covered the blitz, as the school was in Coventry.

 

[tek-monkey]

History, as taught in UK schools, and probably in other countries, is largely like watching a propaganda film.

 

[Mudgie]

My school covered ww2 extensively, we even had re enactment days where we spent the day in a ww2 air raid shelter with rations & gas masks (it was all brought in from outside & set up on our hall) we spent most of the time in darkness & with the noise of bombing & air raid sirens... It was horrifying.


Presumably our school predominantly covered the blitz, as the school was in Coventry.

I'm not sure that re enactment days in schools properly portrays the "horrifying" nature of war, certainly not of the trenches in the First World War where my Grandfather noted the "fearful stench from dead horses and men", slept in a gun pit with rats and suffered recurrent attacks of bad diarrhoea from the insanitary conditions.

 

[littleme]

I'm not sure that re enactment days in schools properly portray the "horrifying" nature of war, certainly not of the trenches in the First World War where my Grandfather noted the "fearful stench from dead horses and men", slept in a gun pit with rats and suffered recurrent attacks of bad diarrhoea from the insanitary conditions.

Like I said, it was a air raid shelter simulation, not the trenches? Didn't you read my post properly @Mudgie ?

 

[Glam]

Like I said, it was a air raid shelter simulation, not the trenches? Didn't you read my post properly @Mudgie ?

Nowhere in your post did you mention a pub, so your question is nul and void just for that reason.

 

[Mudgie]

Like I said, it was a air raid shelter simulation, not the trenches? Didn't you read my post properly @Mudgie ?

Yes, I did properly read your post but added that an "air raid shelter with rations & gas masks" "does not properly portray the "horrifying" nature of war", an opinion that I stand by.

 

[Mudgie]

Nowhere in your post did you mention a pub, so your question is nul and void just for that reason.

Well, if you want to bring pubs into the discussion ......... !

 

[staffordjas]

Essentially:

Russia and Germany agree that Germany can have Poland and Russia gets the Baltic states (there is a lot more to this, but in very rough terms)
Both invade their relevant places
Germany keeps invading other places knowing they're safe from the Eastern flank
Germany decides it now wants the the Baltic states and invades them too, breaking their 10 year non-aggressive pact
Russia decides to swap sides
Russia takes back the baltic states at the end of WW2

I don't remember any of this from history, I just remember Russia was on our side, I can't remember any mention of them before WW2 officially kicked off. For the Baltic states they were invaded by Russia who killed anyone that said anything they didn't like, then by Germany who weren't quite as bad to the average person but murdered anyone looking a little bit Jewish, then by Russia again who killed anyone that did well under the Germans as they must be collaborators and 'arrested' 2.5% of the population over 2 days to refill their forced labour camps. There is a lot more, including family history from my wife, but thats the main gist of it from the side of history I was looking at last week (which is understandably anti Russian and that must be taken into account).

To a Latvian the only real difference between the Nazis and the Soviets was the uniform, unless you were a Jew. Both sides also forced conscription of Latvians to fight in their armies, illegal under international law but then so was most of WW2.

That explains it in much more understandable words than the article I was trying to digest earlier ( I was having difficulty concentrating earlier, before my hospital appt though)

 

[littleme]

Yes, I did properly read your post but added that an "air raid shelter with rations & gas masks" "does not properly portray the "horrifying" nature of war", an opinion that I stand by.

Too much pop again @Mudgie ?

Try re reading AGAIN.

 

[tek-monkey]

That explains it in much more understandable words than the article I was trying to digest earlier ( I was having difficulty concentrating earlier, before my hospital appt though)

There is a lot more to it but they're the basics as I understand them. I think Russia used to have a mutual defence pact with France? Which their pact with the Nazis broke, basically Hitler played them as he got all he wanted from Stalin then went back on it all once he's achieved what he wanted.

If Hitler hadn't turned on Russia then they'd have stayed out of ww2 and the world would be a very different place.