Surviving WWII | Perspective of a Survivor with Mental Disability
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0.000 HBDSurviving WWII | Perspective of a Survivor with Mental Disability
<html> <p>Since 5 years I work in a nursing home for severly mentally handicapped people.<br> <br> Most of the people i work with are able to speak a few words or can not communicate verbally at all.<br> 3 years ago i changed the work place within the institution and met an elderly gentleman, that is now 83 years old, which alone is very remarkable, since people tend to die way younger due to their disabilities or/and continous intake of LOTS of medication.</p> <p>Let´s call him Rudi.</p> <p>Rudi and me got along pretty well from the beginning and i sympathize a lot for him.<br> After a while I noticed he does not like black people to much. We went to the cafeteria to enjoy some cake and coffee, when a black girl walked in.... Ouh you should have seen the fear in his eyes. He immediately hid his face under his arms and pressed himself against the table.</p> <p>The next time we encountered that girl (she lives in the same institution but on the other end of it) he ran like i never thought a man of his age could run.<br> <br> I asked him about his time during the Nazi reign in Germany and dug out a lot of interesting things.</p> <p>His memories are scattered, as he suffers from dementia, so it is hard to put them in a timeline.<br> <br> Rudi was raised by a single mother in Frankfurt and lived with her till he was 25 years old. His mother never told him to be aware of certain ethnicities, except for the russians.<br> Rudi grew up to believe that Hitler was just another politician and the war was never really present.<br> One day his mother´s eyes got hit by a granade shell and she lost her eyelight and could not care for Rudi properly anymore.<br> Being around 25 Years old, he was put in a monestary.<br> His life was not really good there, as the sisters constantly had to hide him away from the public, which RUDI did not really understand and resisted against. So they frequently locked him up in a cellar ( I believe for his own safety of not being discovered )<br> He reports of missing his mother a lot. He told me that the sisters were the one who told him to look out for black people and that they eat other people and worse.</p> <p>I don´t think that was the honest opinion of the sisters, instead they indoctrinated Rudi with Nazi propaganda to align him with the current public opinion, again for his own safety.<br> <br> And they did so rightfully, the Nazis visited the monestary and questionend Rudi and the sisters about why he is here, what his occupation was and so on. Rudi was greeting them with "Heil Hitler" and they asked him questions if he was alright. They never came back.</p> <p>My assumption is that they assumed he was seeking refugee in the monestary after losing the support of his mother and aids the sisters there.<br> <br> That is only possible because Rudi was kind of turned into a Nazi himself, as means of protection for him.<br> (He is not aware his beliefs are founded on that principle)</p> <p><br></p> <p>Rudi is a totally loving guy but you will never achieve that he forgets his indoctrination. It is an honor for me that he shared his thrilling live with me and i loosely assembled the patches in this post to give you a rough idea of his live and how he survived Nazi-Germany.</p> <p>He also knows for a fact that he hates socialism, communism but can´t describe what these social systems are about.<br> </p> <p>https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/3c/ba/b0/3cbab0d3688ce207947654d08d3b2aa5.jpg</p> <p><br></p> <p> Ouh and by his looks, you wouldnt know he has a handicap, which surely aided him alot.<br> </p> </html>