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When you say "It's typical that most people will tell you their grandpa was in the resistance, rarely they will tell you that they collaborated." - do you mean
by whachawatch 5y ago
When you say "It's typical that most people will tell you their grandpa was in the resistance, rarely they will tell you that they collaborated." - do you mean that people lie about being in the resistance or do you mean that they only talk about the war if they were part of the resistance?
- watwut 5y agoNot op, but both happen. People do lie about their own past when it is politically or otherwise inconvenient. Including to their own family. People also lie about their relatives past, if it is convenient. And people are more likely to talk about their family past if it sounds cool and good. They are less likely to talk about ugly parts of it. Regardless of whether ugly is personal, business related or political.
- FriedrichN 5y agoMany people don't know because of the shame, their parents never told them they or their parents were collaborators. After the war many destroyed as much evidence of their crimes and kept everything to themselves. In the Netherlands the death penalty was brought back for just for these crimes after not having been carried out since 1850 (officially abolished in 1870). There was a strong desire for revenge in the first years after the war. That meant anyone who did anything 'wrong' was not going to talk about it.
- jhbadger 5y agoOf course it might not really be lying but just being selective about what to say. Many people were collaborators early in the war when it looked like Germany was winning, but gradually shifted over to the resistance when it began to look like they would eventually lose.