Hi Kea, sorry I offended you by leaving the ANZACs off the list, but I left a lot of other people off it too - the Americans and Canadians for a start. I was deliberately concentrating on those groups who are picked on as being 'those d**n immigrants' who are 'flooding the country'. Asians, Caribbeans, and Africans have always got the worst of it here, but Poles are the recent target of the ultra-right, as they have arrived in such large numbers over recent years.
Aussies and Kiwis have never been much trouble to the right wing consciousness, for various reasons such as they don't arrive in such numbers, they often go home again after their youthful excursion, and, frankly, they speak English and look like us.
I wasn't attempting to make a roster of all the contributors to the Allies - only the ones that the right wingers are so keen to get rid of, when in fact (my point being...) they did also 'earn the right'...
The more I learn about it recently, the more horrified I am by how heinously the Allies betrayed the Poles (and Czechs and other E Europeans) at the end of WWII. We handed them to Stalin, very much against their will, rather than rock the boat. They paid for the feeble loyalties of western Europe, with decades of Soviet rule. 20% of the Polish population died in the war, and then we went and handed them to a brutal dictator, knowing that they had already massacred thousands of Polish officers and intelligentsia to prevent opposition ('the Katyn massacre'). We were also busy appeasing Hitler when he invaded the Sudetenland, so reneged on our treaty to back the Czechs, and didn't lift a finger to help, at that stage.
If Eastern Europe is still recovering from many decades of ruinous Communism, the collapse of which has allowed corruption and organised crime to run wild, then we in the west did have a part in that story - and resenting their presence here now seems in bad grace.
Oh dear, why am I writing about this on a gardening forum? :D
Anyway, apologies Kea if you misunderstood my post, I certainly would not forget the Anzacs if I were discussing all the Allied combatants. I've seen graves of Commonwealth (Aus/NZ/SA/Can) soldiers, sailors and airmen here, and I always think - poor *fatherless children* - came all the way around the world to die in a faraway war and be buried in a foreign country.
My Grandad was at sea (merchant navy) all through the war, and one of his most haunting memories was hearing Maori soldiers singing on deck, under the stars, on their way to the war. He said it was one of the most beautiful things he ever heard, and always wondered what happened to 'those poor fellows'.
Poll