Keeping the holiday around here is challenging. My days are particularly packed, with more classes than usual as two of them wrap up this week. Yesterday began with Conflict of Laws, followed by Comparative Torts. Then almost immediately thereafter many of us boarded a bus for a field trip to the Neuengamme Concentration Camp.
It was one of those gorgeous fall days the holiday often falls on, sunny and pleasant. But we spent it in an environment whose modern serenity belied its past. Although this camp wasn't dedicated to the extermination of Jews, per se, many did perish there (along with many, many others). On an occasion of contemplation, it was quite the place to spend the afternoon.
We got back to school at about sunset. I tried to pretend that sunset hadn't quite happened yet and had one more meal in preparation for today's fast. I have 4 classes today so missing school really wasn't a viable option, but I wanted to do something to not glibly ignore the day.
Yesterday also I discovered that Eric Muller, law prof at UNC, had linked to my post about the Elephant in the Room (reconciling the Holocaust with my current participation in modern German life). I read his comments in the morning, and was particularly pensive throughout the rest of the day and camp tour. I imagine I'll have more to say on the subject as I digest everything, but I can't currently claim any sort of clarity.
Of course, how can there be any clarity? At the camp we faced the abject horrors inflicted by Germans. And back at school, I faced my 19 year old German friend who kindly stayed behind, even though he'd long since finished, to keep me company while I finished my meal.
Still, later in the evening some of us gathered to watch a soccer game – the German national team versus China. And one of my friends leaned over and asked, "Which one are you rooting for?"
Somewhat surprised at the question – I suppose I tacitly rooted for Germany, in support of my friends – I cryptically responded, "You know, it's a bad day to ask me that question. I'm finding it hard right now to say, 'Rah rah, go Germany.'"
The thing is, Germans themselves don't say that so much themselves anymore. In fact, those who do are immediately regarded as extremists. Even at political rallies there was vastly less pageantry than there would be at similar American events, where everything would be draped with red white and blue, with brass bands belting out Irving Berlin songs. Here, the only color motifs were those of the party, and only on the stage and some literature. There would be tremendous discomfort, my friends have explained, with having it any other way.
Comments (1)
Cathy, thanks for continuing to write about this. Please know that my interest is quite personal: my grandfather was in Buchenwald in 1938 and my great-uncle, his brother for whom I'm named, perished in a transit camp on the way to extermination camp Belzec in Poland after deportation from his home town of Bad Kissingen.
I have learned German, lived and worked for a summer in Germany in the early '80s, and am very conscious of my German ancestry.
I find the whole thing quite complex. I certainly do not favor holding today's Germans responsible for the acts of their parents, or in an increasingly large percentage of the population, their grandparents. In my travels in Germany I have met countless good and lovely people.
By the same token, when I was working in Germany in 1981, an older gentlemen who loved to eat lunch with me so he could practice his (excellent) English told me that he had gone to school in Canada because he'd wanted to study dentistry and that was forbidden to people who had had extensive involvement in the Hitler Youth, as he had.
A gang of Hitler Youth chased my father through a park with a noose in Frankfurt in 1938. They'd have caught him if an elderly man hadn't stepped in and chased the Hitler Youth kids away.
Very, very complex stuff.
I hope you'll continue to post about these matters.
Indeed, I find myself wondering if it might not be interesting for us to blog back-and-forth a bit about these issues of memory and forgiveness that Jews confront around Germany. Just a thought.
La Shanah Tovah, Cathy.
Posted by Eric Muller | October 13, 2005 10:33 AM
Posted on October 13, 2005 10:33