What are some moments in history that shows the empathy and compassion people can have for others...

don't forget the Christmas Truce/soccer match in 1914

I still mostly blame Churchill's sperging over Hitler and Poland's sperging over Danzig. If you want to blame anyone blame the League of Nations, everyone should've just let the Poles and Germans fight it out like they had been doing for centuries

I've heard a story about a food riot in Poland (I forget the source offhand),

I think it was around 1920, and in Poland there were a number of food shortages, so the Government had begun a program of food rationing.

Concerned about civilian unrest around one of the food depots, army forces were moved to fortify the building to dissuade and if need be, defend.
Eventually, tensions grew to such an extent that civilians armed themselves and surrounded the depot demanding the food within.
Negotiations took the style of shouting back and forth over an empty street as both sides fruitlessly tried to convince the other to stand down,
and in the middle of talks an unclear shot rang out from one force and a firefight broke out.

Just as sudden and unclear as the shot, someone cried out, "Wait, we can't shoot each other over this!" and both sides then held their fire and came out to the street to talk face to face.

I don't recall whether food was given that day, but everyone was able to walk away unharmed.

Maybe not compassion or empathy necessarily, just people acknowledging the value of other people's lives being worth more than a squabble over food.

Maybe the fighter was out of ammo and he wanted to confirm the kill.

watch this

youtube.com/watch?v=znE2lFdDXFg

gay music overlaid i couldn't finish it

Hurtgen medical truces

It's too long to post here (what is even the point of a character limit on a board dedicated to history and humanities), but read the story of Saint Maximillian Kolbe. It almost always makes me cry.

It was common practice to allow civilians to find downed crews knowing they'd likely be lynched. There are memorials in Germany for American crews who were killed by mobs upset at night bombers but didn't know the difference.

Also the only case of a trophy skull outside of the Pacific was done by a German doctor who found a dead bomber crewman. He was tried at Nuremberg for it.

This. That battle was a fucking meatgrinder for both sides involved. Shame it's mostly overshadowed by the Bulge that happened after.

i like my krauts extra crispy

lol

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it was an American crew

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The soviet astronought who took his buddy's place on a suicide mission. Can't remember the name?

Stop trying to derail the thread.

Hey the user I replied too posted holocaust denial shit. It's fair game

>using /pol/tier images against /pol/

My favorite parts of war are when belligerents aren't killing one another.

Fyodor Fyodorovich

This, one of the most beautiful moments in all of humankind's history

>When King Conrad III defeated the Duke of Welf (in the year 1140) and placed Weinsberg under siege, the wives of the besieged castle negotiated a surrender which granted them the right to leave with whatever they could carry on their shoulders. The king allowed them that much. Leaving everything else aside, each woman took her own husband on her shoulders and carried him out. When the king's people saw what was happening, many of them said that that was not what had been meant and wanted to put a stop to it. But the king laughed and accepted the women's clever trick. "A king" he said, "should always stand by his word."

Vladamir Komorov

You're thinking of the Charlie Brown & Franz Stigler incident.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Brown_and_Franz_Stigler_incident

>There are memorials in Germany for American crews who were killed by mobs upset at night bombers but didn't know the difference.

What the fuck is the difference? Both of them were bombing people

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Grave dug for a downed British pilot by German soldiers.

This guy saved 669 Jewish children from the Nazis. Here he is meeting some years later.

youtube.com/watch?v=6_nFuJAF5F0

St. Maximilian Kolbe was a polish priest and monk who, during World War Two, sheltered 2,000 Jews in his monastery. He also operated an illegal underground radio station that vilified Nazism. Eventually he was arrested and sent to Auschwitz. While there, the camp commander ordered 10 prisoners from Kolbe's cell block starved to death to deter escape attempts. One of the prisoners selected cried out that he had a family, and Kolbe volunteered to take his place. Kolbe led the others in songs and prayer for three weeks, telling them they would soon be with the Virgin Mary in heaven. At the end, the guards came in to kill Kolbe. Kolbe held out his arm and prayed while he received a lethal injection. Kolbe was declared a saint in 1982. He's the patron of political prisoners. The man he saved was at his canonization.

Dr. Hans Münch worked under Mengle but specifically designed his human experiments to be prolonged and harmless to shield as many as he could from torturous and lethal experiments. He helped many prisoners escape and was spared at the Nuremberg trials after 7 prisoners testified for him.

Queen Elizabeth (Queen Consort, mind you) said the following during the Blitz. "The children won't go without me. I won't leave the King. And the King will never leave."

John Rabe was a Nazi, yet when the Japanese invaded Nanjing, he, together with some other westerners who stayed in the city, set up the Nanjing Safety Zone to save the inhabitants of Nanjing from the atrocities of the Japanese army. He was damn successful, saving an estimate of 200,000 - 250,000 people. After the war, when famine hit Germany, he and his family were partly supported by money and food packages from sent by the Guomindang.

Hugh O'Flaherty was an Irish Catholic priest who, in the later years of the war, helped to conceal thousands of Allied escapees and Jews, coordinating with numerous people to hide refugees in their homes. The SS eventually learned what he was doing and failed to assassinate him, and couldn't arrest him while he was inside the Vatican. When the Allies arrived in Rome, Flaherty demanded that German POWs be treated with respect, and in later years visited the imprisoned Herr Kappler — the former SS Chief in Rome, who had threatened to kill Flaherty if he ever exited the Vatican — every month, as his only visitor.

I remember reading about a wounded British soldier in North Africa who was injured in El Alamein. He was on a cot next to a wounded German prisoner. They held hands until the later died in the night.

When the Nazis invaded the Greek island of Zakynthos, they went to the mayor and the bishop and told them "Write down the names of all the Jews on this island and give them to us." A few days later, the mayor and bishop came back and handed a paper with only two names written on it- their own. The bishop then says "If you want to take them, you have to take us, too." The rest of the community on the island hid the Jews for the duration of the Nazi occupation. Every last one of the 275 Jews survived the war. In 1953, a series of earthquakes collapsed all but a few buildings on the island. The first relief ship was from Israel, along with the message: "The Jews of Zakynthos have never forgotten their Mayor and their beloved Bishop and what they did for us."

Chiune Sugihara was a Japanese diplomat who saved over 6,000 Lithuanian Jews by giving them travel visas to Japan. Even when he was being deported he continued to throw visas out of the train.

99% of Danish Jews survived the Holocaust thanks to the efforts of the Danish people.

God bless you, user.

A few Latvian soldiers pushed into the SS rescued a 5 year old jewish boy who'd been separated from his family. They lied about his ethnicity and used him as a Nazi mascot for the duration of the war.

Obviously there's the Polish war-bear story.

Samantha Smith's story is somewhat corny but touching.

St. Damien of Molokai dedicated his life to easing the agony of Hawaiian lepers until he himself died from it

Tank man

The second time wasn't completely out of generosity, you had the Cold War starting. Also, its better to do what the US did after WW2. Rebuilding a country you have just conquered at not having them attack you in the future requires a commitment to the country. Apparently the lessons didn't stick since the US now decides to invade hostile countries and then half ass the effort to rebuild and wonders why they can't make the country peaceful.

The Sichuan Earthquake in China had some feels. Like the guy who carried his dead wife so she could have a proper burial, the schoolteacher who died saving the children, the guy who was buried telling the rescue teams to save someone else, the beggar who raised $1,000 for the victims, etc

Ataturk's speech about the dead Australian soldiers

During the Persian wars the Athenians found themselves alone with the Persian army closing in. They asked Sparta for aid, but the Spartans were busy with a religious festival. So the Athenians prepared a phalanx before seeing a big cloud of dust, which seemed to be the encroaching Persians. Instead it was 1000 men - all those who could fight - from the Boeotian town of Plataea. Some years before, Plataea had sent to Athens for assistance after their independence was threatened by their overbearing neighbour Thebes. Athens duly sent an army to face the Thebans who had by this stage besieged Plataea. Thus, in honour of this action, the Plataeans marched out to the aid of their ally. One hell of a scene from an Athenian point of view and considering this is a small town, little more than a village, facing off against an EMPIRE to repay a favor.

I suppose it'd be easier to rebuild defeated countries if the populations of the defeated countries share your values, or aren't slimey terrorists. The Germans retained their honour, I think, after they'd been defeated. Crazy terrorists who follow the Koran to the word can't be reasoned with by anybody who is not a Muslim.

the christmas truces during wwI was pretty neat
at one point the soldiers just said "fuck this shit let's play sum vidya" and they did

and guess who was against it? yap, that one guy with the funny moustache who was later the king of germania

also, this neat music by paul mccartney:
youtube.com/watch?v=J7ErrZ-ipoE

Two wrongs don't make a right.

All the officers were against such truces. Officers hate it when their soldiers act like humans. It makes it harder for them to coax their soldiers into killing and dieing.

Not to exonerate the US but Germany was literally a process of "rebuilding," wheras now the US gets involved in scenarios where there isn't as much to rebuild as there is to build from the ground up.

well, apparently they were right: it happens that once both sides met, the casualities on both sides went down by a big margin, almost like they weren't trying to hit each other...

When Britain brought civilization and progress to every corner of the globe.

Based

>What the fuck is the difference? Both of them were bombing people

Only one intentionally.

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>Dec 20th
MERRY CHRISTMAS CHARLIE BROWN!!

one of them wasn't wrong

Wow.

I almost just started tearing up at work. This guy was a true hero.

Funeral of the Red Baron.

>In common with most Allied air officers, Major Blake, who was responsible for Richthofen's body, regarded the Red Baron with great respect, and he organised a full military funeral, to be conducted by the personnel of No. 3 Squadron AFC.

>The body was buried in the cemetery at the village of Bertangles, near Amiens, on 22 April 1918. Six of No. 3 Squadron's officers served as pallbearers, and a guard of honour from the squadron's other ranks fired a salute.

>Allied squadrons stationed nearby presented memorial wreaths, one of which was inscribed with the words, "To Our Gallant and Worthy Foe".

The Zulu saluting the British at Islandlwana for their courage

That's some shit man

It's stuff like this that gives you hope for humanity.

>en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_orphans_in_China
Basically in WWII, shitloads of Japanese workers brought their families over in conquered territories to do work for the Japanese military. Northeast China meanwhile was virtually thought of as new Jap territory. When WWII came to a close, they evacuated extremely fast to escape possible Chinese retaliation. They left 2,800 children and young women behind for some fucking reason.
>Be Chinese peasants.
>Just straight up emerging from a war filled with war crimes committed by the Nips.
>Encounter abandoned Nip babies and girls.
>Raise them instead.

Norman Borlaug saved over 1 billion lives.

The Great Race of Mercy in 1925 across miles upon miles of barren tundra using only dogs to save hundreds of lives.

A 5 year old British boy saved his mother and sister during an islamic terrorist attack in Kenya by calling one of the gunmen a "bad man". The terrorist felt guilty, gave him a mars bar, and allowed them to flee.

In 1980, 14-year-old Steven Stayner had been held captive and molested since age 7. Upon learning that a new boy had been kidnapped, and aware of the boy's impending fate, Stayner escaped with White by night, hitchhiking 40 miles to the younger boy's hometown to take him to the police. There are commemorative statues of 14-year-old Stayner rescuing 5-year-old White in each of their hometowns.

Truly heartbreaking and heartwarming at the same time. This should adapt this to a film.

shitposting in 2017 doesn't make it right

>Wait, come back! I'll give you a horse!

A true Christmas miracle desu.

My grandpa told me about one time in Vietnam where some guy started singing "O come all ye faithful" in the middle of a massive shootout.

Everyone on both sides stopped firing and it all just kinda went quiet for a few minutes before fighting started up again.