PERSPECTIVE

Our Boys vs The Schweinhunden

CONTEXT ! CONTEXT ! CONTEXT !

Something we always have to bear in mind when looking beyond our own inner selves. I am always aware of its importance when I am pursuing my family or my local history. It is a mistake to interpret people's actions from the past in terms of todays knowledge and values. You have to see the world as they saw it and give them credit where credit is due for taking decisions within the options open to them and the background against which they were reared.

I read all that WWII stuff in my youth, the virtuous English, the cruel and immoral Germans, the nobility of "our" side of the war and the sacrifices being made for peace in our time.

But let's cross the Irish sea and the English channel and look back over our shoulder. That's not quite how it seemed from the continent. Sure, the German occupation of Belgium was resented and as Nazi atrocities were exposed people's anger rose. But that did not automatically make the English virtuous.

Albert Folens' first acquaintance with war was the killing of the local brewers sons in an Allied raid on his native village of Bissegem during WWI. That led to a communal hatred of the English. Then there was the RAF pilot who strafed him while he was cycling on a country road in WWII. The Allied bombing of Göttingen where he was living towards the end of WWII which nearly cost his wife their baby. His imprisonment by the English in Göttingen in June 1945 where he and his cellmates had to listen to an English Military Policeman repeatedly rape women in a nearby cell.

Turns the world a bit on its head, doesn't it.

We condemn the Nazis for shooting civilians but forget to mention the English carpet bombing of Hamburg and Dresden for which nobody ended up in Nürnberg. I'm not trying for a balance sheet here, just to remind you that there are two sides to this story and virtue rarely emerges unscathed.

Albert Folens had been reared on the other side of the story from us and that needs to be taken into account.

And we also need to be very aware of the ramifications of the occupation of one's country and the real moral dilemmas facing those with responsibility for their people when dealing with the occupiers.

Over the last number of years, and more particularly recently when involved with Leentje's book, I have become increasingly aware of how complicated this issue really is.

Take the example of Gérard Romsée, who had been Secretary General of the Belgian Home Affairs Department of government during the occupation. At his trial Romsée pleaded that he had faithfully carried out his duty to the Belgian people, which he probably had, but Romsée was sentenced to twenty years. Meanwhile in Jersey (CI) which was the only part of "Britain" occupied by the Germans, the Bailiff, who cooperated with the Germans, even to the point of supplying Jewish names for export, was knighted by the British monarch after the war.

Clearly this is not an unambiguous area and context plays a huge part in people's behaviour.

Had the context of Albert's trial been different. Had the Belgian state, with a government full of communists, not been on an orgy of revenge. Had the available evidence been fully and fairly presented, Albert should have walked. In fact, in my view he should have got a medal as he went on his way. But no, ten years for you m'lad.

Contradictions were rife. Take these two RAF pilots in 1942/3: one (British) tried to kill a young man on a bicycle while another (Belgian) made good use of his firepower on a lone unauthorised mission and strafed Gestapo HQ in Brussels.

War is messy and context is vital.

Now, clear your head and go read Leentje's book.

Get the book.

The book is available to readers in Europe here, and to those outside Europe, and particularly in the USA here