The BBC has posted an interesting first-person account of a visit to Poland.

We meet a man aged 95, Stanislaw Stefaniak. He describes how the village had always been divided – Jews in the centre doing trades, Poles around the edge farming the land.

Then one day the Jews were ordered to gather in the main square before being marched to the nearest railway station. A few, he says, were hidden by Poles.

He hesitates. The easiest narrative here is that it was only the Nazis who killed the Jews. But Stanislaw admits an uncomfortable truth. After the war, he says, the Jews who came out of hiding were robbed and killed by Poles.

This reminds me of my own recent visit to the Auschwitz death camp. A Polish woman said to me “the Germans did all this”. I said “evil people did all this, and evil people were from other countries too, not just Germany”. She disliked my answer and insisted Germans were to blame for everything.

The BBC reports on a rememberance event for the Falklands War.

The Falklands have marked 30 years since the end of the war with Argentina with a service at Liberation Monument.

[…]

Veterans of the 1982 war then led a military parade to the Liberation Monument for an act of remembrance, paying tribute to the 255 UK servicemen and three Falklands civilians who died in the war.

Wreaths were laid at the monument and the national anthem was played.

An estimated 650 Argentines were also killed during the conflict.

Another interesting, albeit controversial fact, is that the Falklands War helped focus the UK on a collection of IT service provider management practices. It has been widely claimed that the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) became a priority after serious delays were found in mobilizing British naval forces. The delay in getting warships from England to Argentina was apparently said to be caused by service provider deficiencies.