Another keeper of a reply - so many things to respond to!
I love it that you see good in Germans as well as Russians, and traits they share.
And your poor father! How could one man suffer so much bad luck - or as he saw it, not getting killed was good luck, even it meant more time in POW camp.

Oh, the lack of men! I first read of it here at Steemit: little girls growing up without fathers and grandfathers. The men died in the war. It took a generation or two for children to have fathers on the scene once more....
So much sadness!
And yet there is still goodness, and you seem to know how to find it.