Cyberia wrote:I think I would want to Live in France Circa 1942. I think it would be interesting to live under German Occupation And be part of a resistance Group. Dont ask me Why...Flame on guys
First flame: The FRENCH Resistance? The French Resistance eventually did some great things and aided the Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied France, but for most of the war it was pretty pathetic. This is something the French today - or at least still under Mitterand - refused to acknowledge, just how deep the level of French collaboration with the Germans went after the disaster of 1940. The French Resistance had more access to arms and support than any other resistance group in Europe at the time, but they were tiny and did little until the prospect of a major Allied invasion envigorated them. In contrast, the two largest resistance movements (by far!) throughout the war in Nazi-occupied Europe came from the areas where the Nazis behaved the least civilized, where it was the most dangerous to resist: Yugoslavia and Poland. The various Yugoslav resistance groups who eventually coalesced into Josip Broz's (Tito's) partisans tied down large amounts of Nazi units, who had to continuously chase them around the Balkan mountains. It was very dangerous to be a Nazi soldier anywhere in Yugoslavia, but a Nazi soldier could live a very comfortable and safe life in Paris for most of the war. No Nazi-occupied country was able to liberate as much of its own territory with minimal outside assistance as Yugoslavia. Only in the final stages of the war did the Soviet armies cross into Yugoslavia and help take Belgrade.
In Poland, the old government forces who were defeated by the Nazi and Soviet invasion of 1939 went underground and formed the Armia Krajowa, the National Army (known in short as the "AK"). They provided the Allies with intelligence, assassinated Nazis, bombed bridges, trains, roads, buildings, military installations, etc. Keep in mind that getting caught with the Resistance in Poland (or Eastern Europe in general) meant not only certain death, it meant death for your family and possibly even your home village. The Nazis behaved far more civilly in Western Europe... The AK provided the Allies with info on the death camps, and led a major revolt in Warsaw in August, 1944 that was nearly successful. After the war the communist regime tried to destroy the AK resistance, claiming it was a tool of teh Western imperialists so a civil war dragged on in Poland until 1952 involving the AK and units of a Ukrainian resistance group, the OUN. In 1947 when the communists offered an amnesty, part of the AK resistance took it up - and 20,000 AK soldiers gave in their guns. 20,000! In all of France during the war, there were maybe a few thousand resistance fighters, at least before 1944.
I know that after the war the French Resistance were romanticized, but if you want to join a resistance, try an Eastern European one. The Soviet partisans were just as effective and numerous, and in fact once when Stalin met de Gaulle on a trip to Moscow de Gaulle tried to equate the French Resistance with the Soviet partisans, to which Uncle Joe just openly laughed...
Or if a commoner, then Renaissance Italy, or an Ojibway before Columbus, living right here in the land of 10,000 lakes....
