This made me really think and reflect on this very sensitive question. What do I really feel about this?
No, I don't feel any resentment towards Germany or the Germans. And how could I? About the time of the rise of Nazism, the German culture produced the two most influential authors in my life: Herman Hesse and Erich Fromm. And how about Meister Eckhart, Bach and Goethe? The great legacy of these people, who reached the heights of the human spirit, will live for centuries to come, while the Nazis will only be remembered for their heinous crimes. The Germany that I know is a fine country, with picturesque countryside, beautiful nature and fairy tale-like medieval towns. The German people that I know are open, kind, hospitable, intelligent, engaged individuals. Off course, there is immense pain and grief and unbelief at the thought of all the dear innocent relatives of mine being cold bloodedly murdered just because they were Jews. And often I cannot help crying over the fate of my little uncles who had to die such a violent death at such an early age. And their loving memory should live and should be passed on to younger generations for as long as possible, but not the feelings of hate or resentment or vengeance.
There is also something else. I myself come from a country that committed horrible atrocities against its own people and people of other nations. Millions upon millions of innocent people have been killed, tortured, starved to death, sent to labour camps. The country of Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, of Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov produced Stalin and KGB. And while Germany managed to become a flourishing democracy with respect for human rights and for human beings, most countries of the former Soviet Union have remained in the steel grip of the old elite, whereby an individual life is nothing compared to the so-called state interests. Russia is essentially ruled by the once so hated KGB, whose former and present agents and their friends now held all key positions and keep lying and committing unspeakable crimes. So actually I feel much more ashamed of my own country than resentful towards the country that has taken responsibility for and unequivocally condemned the Nazi regime.
Dearest, special, old friend Lonechka,
ReplyDeletewho if not me, coming from the family with the very similar background who were forced to suffer the same horrible death in the Second World War and living in Germany now can understand you as i am trying to?
Walking every days the streets of Weimar - the town chosen by führer to be THE exemplary town, with Buchenwald but just 10 km away, i think, how could it happen, how coupd people here do and welcome such crimes... and what had happened with them afterwards? and now i am walking the same streets...
And then i go to the University, to work, to the Baha'i community and meet wonderful people, special people, German people, for whom the things that have happened were exactly as horrible as for us and who are the ones feeling the collective guilt although they have never been part of the horrors themselves...
So this were one kind of people i have met, whose families where faithful to their ideas and who suffered themselves but didn't help the Nazis, but ratherd moved out, etc.
There is another group of people, of each i only know teo but hope to meet more, and these ar the grandchildren who told me (with shame) that their grandparents have been supporting the Nazis or were in the NSparty, etc., but when they have seen with their own eyes the deportation and ppogroms of the Jews, their life and doings have completely changed.
Beside one person i don't know anybody who had told me their family was supporting the regime actively and i don't think i want to know it...
It is just like my Grandfather Genus, whose family was burried alive along with other Jews of Krasnaja Sloboda in Belarus told my mother, "You don't need to go to Germany to find people who are not human any more or will betray you. There were such in our own Städtl. So always look at the person himself and not at what country he comes from."
So this is what helps me to live here and to find inner peace and i completely agree with you about working out the past - i don't know the people and government who have done it better than the Germany and worse than KGB structures and people...
Sending you much much much love, also to Ludmilka und Annushka-Sofjuschka :)
Yours Vera
Dear Verochka,
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for this insight into your experience with this difficult subject. Indeed, you live right in the middle of it, facing the tower of Buchenwald every day, treading the ground that had to bear the unbearable, where so much still reminds you of the grievous past. It should be so much more real to you than it is to me, but still I often can't help crying every time I think about the tragedy of all the people who perished in the war. Let us keep their dear memory in our hearts and work towards a world in which this would never happen again.
Warm hugs and greetings to you and Dominik and all the friends!
Lonja