When I was in high school back in the 1980's our history teacher liked to bring in people who had been a part of some historical event. One time in my junior year one of my classmates grandfathers came in and gave a talk about the invasion of Poland in 1939. He was then serving as a conscript in the Wehrmacht and recounted the invasion and the contrasts that he noticed. One thing that stood out, where he even shed a few tears, was telling the story of how his division was up on a small hill and they were charged by a Polish cavalry unit that were subsequently cut down in a matter of minutes. He had remembered how noble they had looked, and then within minutes they were all dead - something that apparently haunted him still then. He brought his photo album and I remember after class staying and looking through it - actually missing a good chunk of my next class.
He stayed in Poland until after the invasion of France, and spent most of the rest of the war in France - lucky because many of his family and friends went to the Eastern Front and were subsequently killed by the Soviets.
