Mom's Rehab and her roommate.

[abaris]

I'd only read about WW2 from history books and TV and going to the Holocaust Museum in DC, striking enough and scary enough. But my mom's roommate lived it. She was living in Poland at the age of 5, just to hear it from a survivor is striking. I can't even begin to imagine what that was like, especially for a kid.

My parents lived through it. In emmigration at Hungary. They told me a lot. Such as a dud hitting the pavement right in front of them and them continuing on their date, as if nothing had happened. Or, on their way back to Vienna on foot, the bodies lying in the ditches no longer leaving any imprint on them, since it was a usual sight. Or my grandmother calmly closing a window when a bomb blast it open.

Just scratching the surface here, but you get the impression.

The first Hungarian phrase I learned was "bombers coming in from Veszprém", which, for my parents, was a clear indicator of Budapest being hit. They heard it on a near daily basis on the radio.

My father never served in any army, but he was the right age. So the Russians took him prisoner on the streets. When the guard, riding a mule, fell asleep, he slipped from the column and, by his own account, took a ride back to Budapest on a Russian truck, claiming he was a displaced person and worker, using what little Russian he knew.