Hi, ladies and laddies.
I was wondering whether this would be a decent topic, but I would love to know more about it regardless. We all know that both the Axis and Soviets treated civilians incredibly poorly, but as the war progressed and resistance movements rose up, the very term civilian or non-combatant slowly lost meaning.
For example, in my country(Slovenia), an ordinary person would be caught between the Axis(either Germans, Hungarians, Italians or Croats), their collaborators(local militias) and resistance movements(though unified, the resistance was still made up of different democratic and communist movements). Each group would have it’s set of demands for the local populace and would often violently supress any non-conformity, even if only imagined. Any imagined support for an opposing group would also obviously bring it’s own reprisals.
My question then is how did this maelstrom of confusion, violence and ideology affect individual civilians and families? Are there stories out there of families being split between the two sides? Are there people who were forced to join a side they never wanted, only to keep their lives? To what lengths did people go to, just to make sure they saw another day? You know, individual stories of the little man and woman just trying to make it in some of the worst times ever.
If you feel like my question has already been answered, or is inappropriate, have fun deleting the topic.
Cheers,
Gloo