Sad over historical deaths?

[Personyouneedisnannymcphee]

Obviously death happens every day and there are many recent, very sad deaths. But some historical ones actually make me ache a little when I think about them I think due to the details and historical background of them more so than sometimes things I hear on the news. Some of these being:

-the Romanov children. Of course the Tsar was horrific but how they died thinking they were going to safety and then didn’t get killed by bullets as jewels in their clothes protected them so they were finished with bayonets.

-Anne Boylyn’s death because the details of her ladies not letting the men touch her afterwards for fears they’d violate her headless body.

AIBU for sometimes being incredibly sad over these people I never knew or do you have your own historical death that makes your stomach drop when you think of it?

Istvan Reiner. His beautiful smile. It breaks my heart.

He was one of millions killed by the nazis, but he is the personification of innocence.

Anne Frank. Imagine being Otto Frank, surviving the war and holocaust and going back to Amsterdam to find out that both his daughters and his wife were dead.

I visited there last year and yes it's terribly sad what happened.

Anne Frank for me. The conditions she had to live in hiding and then her imprisonment and death shortly before the war ended. We have been to the house she hid in in Amsterdam and I think how on earth could my family fare in conditions like that. Having to be absolutely silent most of the time. Would be so hard for little children. I've read her diary and seen rare footage of her leaning out of a window watching a bridal party go by absolutely having no idea the horror to come x

The SS Eastland was a heartbreaking tragedy. More people died than when the Titanic sank but it's relatively unheard of. I watched a YouTube video by AskAMortician and she goes into detail about some of the individuals.

The Pendle Witches x

Not a famous death, but my dad lost a cousin in the Ibrox disaster in 1971. I remember my dad reminiscing about it and his voice cracking when he said "he was just a wee boy watching a football match".

I’m a member of a holocaust memorial page on social media and every day or two they put a picture up of those who perished and what little they knew of their lives !

For some reason the holocaust deaths and what they did to men, women and children, haunts me and even though I’m not Jewish or know anyone who had relatives go through that period of time, my heart breaks every time the group put a new photograph up or another documentary is shown on TV

Children who died through neglect (any era) really affects me too, I don’t have children but knowing they had their lives cruelly taken away is also heartbreaking!

The Iolaire tragedy. The royal yacht was carrying men home from WW1 when it sank in Stornaway harbour on 1st January 1919, killing over 200 men. I find it terribly sad that these poor men could see their home island after surviving years at war but never quite made it. It’s unimaginable. The island lost nearly an entire generation of men that day and the impact it had on these communities was catastrophic.

😭 that is heartbreaking.

Not really historical but the death of Kirsty McColl always upsets me.

The Holocaust. Find it harrowing.... the pictures of happy families in the spring blossom thinking they were going for a shower. Just makes me so sad.

This bought real tears to my eyes , what a brave little girl, so sad that she will never be known

Emmett Till.

James Bulger. I can read and watch some dark true life stuff but anything on this beautiful little boy I avoid. It makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck. I just can't even begin to imagine what his family has suffered.

For some reason the death scene from the film from the Stoning of Sorya M came on my tiktok feed last night. Horrific scene. Then I googled about and to see she was actually innocent. Was on my mind today.

The story of the Kindertransport always gets me.
The children who were saved by it, but never saw their families again.
And the children who were left behind to the horror that followed.

The torpedoing of the SS City of Benares during World War 2, with 258 lives lost including 77 children who were being evacuated to Canada.

I disagree about their deaths not being particularly horrible. The Romanov murders in that hellish basement were the stuff of nightmares.

Aberfan.
Senghenydd explosion.

The Holocaust. Particularly when you see pictures of the children.

Really there's too many to mention.

And the not so famous.

In the lighter months I go walking two or three times in the countryside with a longstanding friend. Our thing is to not revisit the same place. There's often a moment when we are walking through a church graveyard and I notice a heart-breaking epitaph or the headstone of a child who never grew to go through the span of life that so many of us enjoy. Sometimes these seem old and neglected and I wonder if anyone remembers them.

Wilfred Owen

Dora Carrington

Virginia Woolfe

The women buried in Crossbones graveyard.

Agreed - a fantastic book. Also, in the same vein, a recent BBC podcast about the victims of Bible John. They were treated so badly by the police and the press of the time. I felt the BBC journalist picked up their bodies, put their clothes and their dignity back on. Particularly moving was a beautiful monologue from one of their children who spoke very poetically about the loss of his mother and how he cherished her.

Whilst I agree with all of the above. We are still allowing (forcing) tragic deaths on our loved ones by not allowing anyone to say 'Enough is enough, let me go'. Whether this be someone young(ish) who has a terminal illness or someone older who has repeatedly said that they do not want to live once unable to be independant. THIS will be the crime that the future looks back on

Honestly, I find it hard to feel much about the deaths of people I will never know from long ago.

Titanic…and therefore refuse to ever watch the film.