But he also noticed that they seemed not to comprehend what the people whom they were liberating had gone through. They could hardly be bothered to acknowledge the cheering. When one of the soldiers threw down a cigarette butt and one of the wretched survivors picked it up, he had several camera lenses aimed at him. It was at that moment that my uncle, a decent, earnest, intelligent man, decided that he had more in common with the Russians, underdogs like himself. He went back to Poland and became a Communist.
American ignorance can be frightening.
Victors don't learn. Americans carry on as if they can always win effortlessly. The British are still perplexed not to be top dogs. The French still mourn their long lost glory. Russians treat Grozny as if it was 1945 Berlin.