Let's not forget the tyranny of Nazis

The younger generation has very little understanding of what our soldiers fought for in World War II. To the Nazis, everyone was a lesser human than the Germans.

A Polish refugee told me that when the Germans conquered Poland, the Polish could have only black bread while the Germans had white bread. The Polish did not have to get an education beyond the 6th grade because they were to only be menial workers. The father east the people in Europe lived, the lower form of human they were. The Baltic States were to be "Lebensraum" for the Nazis. There were thousands more smaller concentration camps than Buchenwald and Auschwitz, in which conditions were extremely bad for the inmates. The purpose of the German conquests was not just a land grab, but the enslavement of all non-Germanic peoples of Europe. Our solders fought against pure evil and won.

What is so sad is that after the Allied victory over Germany, an evil dictator, Joseph Stalin, gained rule over much of Eastern Europe and subjected that area to brutal repression after 1945 and killed as many as 40 million of his own Russian people. Were it not for the resilience of the West, led by America and presidents such as Harry Truman and Ronald Reagan, half of the world would still be under an evil communist rule suppressing all the freedoms we enjoy today.

Although Nazism and Communism are fortunately things of the past, we must not forget their history lest we have to relive it in the future.

Stewart E Brekke

Downers Grove