I’m American, but my grandmother came to America in 1950 from France after WWII. Her father was in the French military so she got out after Hitler took over and lived in Algeria for a while.
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She’s about 90, but she’s traumatized watching this; just reminding her viscerally of Hitler.
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I know its cliche to compare anyone to Hitler, but damn it, Putin is doing a good audition. I know he’s not overtly anti-semitic or genocidal, but his desire for land and conquest is scary.
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They’re mildly shocked by Putin’s actions, but it seems to stem more from personal disappointment than fear seeing as previously they’ve been leaning towards Russian apologeticism and insistence on good eastern European relations being more important than good transatlantic relations. Living in East Germany they’ve spent half their lives at the frontlines of potential nuclear annihilation, it’s gonna take more than an invasion several countries away to seriously unsettle them.
Grandparents? My mother was 10 years old when WWII started and the Germand levelled her hometown and she is still with us. Pretty far gone mentally, so I hope she is not aware of it. As for me, I’m a child of the cold war and I’m handeling it poorly. I grew up under the threat of nuclear warfare and experiencing this again keeps me awake at night.
My grandma was pretty relaxed. She was surprised and not much else.
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Maybe it is the cognitive abilities degrading. For nearly 100 she is still pretty clear in her mind though.
Throughout her life, she was someone who was a very irritable stubborn person, but since her 80s she has mellowed down a lot and is not thrown easily out of balance.
My grandparents don’t seem to have any WWII flashbacks. My grandma did show me a picture of her wearing a shirt saying “liever een raket in mijn tuin dan een Rus in mijn keuken” which would translate to “rather a rocket in my yard than a Russian in my kitchen”. It was from the cold war era. It does seem to remind them a bit of the cold war.
Of my great grandmother was alive I believe she’d be stressing quite a bit. Honestly the first time I’m glad she’s been laid to rest. She was so old she was born in tzarist Russia.
My old grandpa (90 years) in Kyiv becomes scared every time air raid sirens start to blow, he doesn’t know if this is again a Russian “precision” weapon or they decided to obliterate the city.
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Look what they do to Kharkiv
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Fucking Russian Nazis.
I haven’t seen my grandmother (96, a teenager during WW2) this week, but she had a pretty standard reaction of mild surprise/overt distaste at what was happening when I last saw her – her reaction did not seem to be obviously colored by her experience of WW2 tbh.
My grandmother is fine, she only made some comments that it’s typical for Russian army. There were much worse times here, she often talks about how one day she came back from school and there were American soldiers on their backyard. Then it was forbidden to talk about it for the next 40 years.
My grandma (101 yo) experienced many air raids during WWII but luckily survived it all unharmed.
She is a tough cookie and I am often surprised by how well she takes news about wars worldwide.
The current war is literally much closer to home (it’s only some 400 miles to the Ukranian border) but my grandma takes it pretty well. We trust in NATO (we are surrounded by it) and hope we are safe in Austria.
She immediately insisted we donate money to take care of Ukranian refugees that are already arriving in the EU by the hundreds of thousands.
Slightly related but my family is mixed from Sarajevo, Bosnia, and basically everyone in my family and some close friends were crying watching this invasion. Putin is using the same fascistic rhetoric and tactics as Milošević etc used during the 90s, and it’s scary just watching it repeat itself in Europe again
Just a friendly reminder that WW2 wasn’t the last European war 🤗
My grandma is in Ukraine. She is very worried and among her first words were “I’ve seen this before”.
She isn’t affected. Obviously she says that it’s horrible what’s happening but just like when they put images in the tv of children in Africa dying of malaria and then goes on.
She has lived through 2-3 dictatorships a civil war and WWII so she much rather watch the drama that’s happening with the Infanta’s marriage or the second season of Pasion de Gavilanes and I don’t fault her.
My great grandparents saw ww2 but they were kids and they haven’t really said anything.
My parents and grandparents saw Bosnian War and they aren’t handling it well. The first night my grandma was constantly watching the news.
My grandfather isn’t making any overt connections to his own experiences (he was six when the war started), but he does get rather sad when watching it all unfold on the news. Especially seeing the refugees flee their homes seems to be affecting him quite a bit.
My Polish grandparents lived through the cold war under the socialist regime. They don’t really want to talk about the war
My grandmother lives in Poland.
She lived through World War II in Warsaw and its outskirts as a girl, survived a march to a camp and spent the summer and fall hiding in a barn, eating scraps, and when things were done, she lost both her parents quickly due to the ravages of war. That was hard on her. She was involved in the rebuilding of Warsaw, so she saw all sorts of things on the ground.
She lived through post-war Soviet installed socialism and the introduction of martial law in the 1980’s when there was a threat of Soviet invasion due to the ruminating Solidarity movement.
She’s over 90 now and she is triggered at the prospect of another war. She can’t sleep and as an elder, doesn’t have that much communication with her cohort so sometimes feels like she doesn’t have anyone to understand her perspective fully. Her only cousin of the same age died this summer.
Not my grandparents, my parents. My father is worried, but not surprised the slightest bit.
My grandmother has some deep scars from WWII and this is hitting her pretty bad. She’s had real trouble sleeping these past days,
My father is 89 and visited me when I lived in Kyiv. He is appalled by recent events, and sad for the country, which he loved. His father fought in WW1, and I think my father despairs that the world is no better, more than a hundred years later.
I haven’t discussed it with them but i’m quite positive they are not handling it well.
My grandfather was left orphaned after the war, forced to leave his home in Karelia as a refugee. Once i dared ask him about the war and that was the only time i’ve seen him angry. He refused to say a word.
My grandfather was 9 in 1945 and was in Dresden at the time. He is rather shocked but not really surprised by putin’s actions. But it brings back the memories from dresden when he sees the bombardments on the TV and here’s the sirens from TV and prays to God that it will stop soon
My nan is 90 and she’s OK.
She’s absolutely furious about what Putin’s doing and distressed for Ukraine but we all are.
Obviously this does trigger WW2 memories but I think she was more distressed about us going into Iraq. That was us being the aggressor and triggered a lot of feelings for her because she saw it as us acting like Hitler.
Both her and I have lived with the threat of nuclear attack before so we’re used to that. It’s not fun and sad we’ve gone back to it but we still think it will never happen. We didn’t think Russia would actually invade Ukraine though so…
She’s doing what she does in any crisis. She’s trying to help. She’s set up fundraising events in the sheltered accommodation she lives in and her local church to help Ukrainian refugees and has written to her MP about letting them have visas.
My uncle is also 90 and not doing as well. He remembers the Blitz and lost friends and family. He’s gone into a bit of a depression thinking about Ukrainian civilians because he knows what it’s like to be attacked. Remember though, he never saw a German on the streets here, so he knows it’s much worse for Ukraine.
My grandma was born in 1933, so she remembers the WW2 and the following anti-Soviet Resistance.
Well, she is partially afraid that the war may spill over to another European countries, but this time we are protected by NATO from Russians.
I think that for Finland the threat never really went away. The intensity of the threat has varied, but it has always been there.
My grandma passed away last year, the noise of tanks still haunted her.
Chatting with the elders of my native neighbourhood (many were born in Italy), they keep repeating how this reminds them “the big war”.
My grandmother says the germans should have finished off the russians when they had the chance so… not the best take