Yes. My ears ring & burn in the reading of your piece. Always a self-siren the ringing may be tinnitus from being a long time loud rock music etc. freak, yet I believe the burning to be an authentic alarm. Your words resonate clearly and there is much to relate. My unchosen ancestry german and linked through paternal line to grandfather's upbringing as a nazi youth whose own parents had relocated to the US sensing his corruption. Yet still, the installed youth group brainwashed cruelty resulted in incestuous rapes vented on me. As for my own choices, my belief in species equality and the cleansing of body mind spirit through clean food, creativity and gratitude meditation have resulted in Survival over victim behavior. Thank you ♡
I remember temping with a gal who grew up in Germany and described what it was like after the war. We forget what that must have been like. This is the second piece of yours and I like that you share your honest truth and aren't afraid to speak it, write it, share it. This piece reminded me of an experience I had in Munich. I hope you don't mind my sharing this with you.
He was at least 6 feet tall, blonde, azure-eyed, looking like a robust pig-fed mid-westerner with an identity crisis. I was my 5’2” chocolate hair and eyed self, twenty years old, having just registered at the Munich hostel next door when I met him in the summer of 1980. Over a stein and a pretzel, I discovered we were both US political science college students.
He was bright, articulate and had a wicked sense of humor. He’d had an uncle who used to be the Mayor of Munich. He was one year shy of graduating from the University of Minnesota. “One day I will return to Munich and become the Mayor of this beloved town,” he said proudly. He then asked if I wanted a tour guide.
“I came to Munich to see Dachau.” I said innocently.
“That’s no place for a person to go alone. You don’t need to go there. Munich is a cosmopolitan city. The architecture is great; the culture here is top rate. Let me show you the Hauptbahnhof, the English Garten and then if you still need to see Dachau I’ll take you.”
I think two days went by in a blur, with mostly beer gardens in my memory. At the end of each day there was an argumentative session with him trying to talk me out of taking the train to the empty barracks outside of town.
Sure enough he was on the same train the next morning. There was no lively banter between us as we’d had between rounds of live oompah music the night before. We entered the “Arbeit Mach Frei” (Work Makes Free) gates together. I remember walking, with him following me, through the small box-like museum of old eyeglasses, mountains of ancient suitcases and dusty shoes, mounds of hair, and the pictures and paperwork of those who passed on the premise. I was completely silent in the room where the ovens were fed bodies incessantly. The brick wall had two half moon steel doors open to see exactly where bone and skin became ash and smell. My legs were heavy and I could not move. There were not many tourists swarming around me and I didn’t feel pressured to move quickly from exhibit to exhibit. My identity as a Jew had been formed with the annual movie showing skinny people in striped pajamas waiting to die and piles of skeletons dumped into mass graves. So it was true, man demolishes man.
When I finally escaped the confines of the ovens, I walked out of the dark into the German sunshine and saw an area that was where they lined people up against a wall and shot them. There was a large sign that prominently said, “Never Again.” Suddenly my tour guide who had been silent said, “That’s so ridiculous. Of course, it will happen again. People want it to happen again.” In that heartbeat, I realized that had it been 40 years prior or maybe 40 years down the road he’d probably have me up against that wall with a gun aimed at my forehead.
I agree with everything you have said. The feeling of helplessness as I see the “train barrelling toward me” is overwhelming. What can we do besides voting, writing to our Congress people (here it’s kind of a moot point as they all agree), fill out postcards to strangers encouraging them to vote, share on FB information detailing what is happening in this country/ where we are headed. But I don’t think this is enough to stop what is happening.
Yes. My ears ring & burn in the reading of your piece. Always a self-siren the ringing may be tinnitus from being a long time loud rock music etc. freak, yet I believe the burning to be an authentic alarm. Your words resonate clearly and there is much to relate. My unchosen ancestry german and linked through paternal line to grandfather's upbringing as a nazi youth whose own parents had relocated to the US sensing his corruption. Yet still, the installed youth group brainwashed cruelty resulted in incestuous rapes vented on me. As for my own choices, my belief in species equality and the cleansing of body mind spirit through clean food, creativity and gratitude meditation have resulted in Survival over victim behavior. Thank you ♡
I remember temping with a gal who grew up in Germany and described what it was like after the war. We forget what that must have been like. This is the second piece of yours and I like that you share your honest truth and aren't afraid to speak it, write it, share it. This piece reminded me of an experience I had in Munich. I hope you don't mind my sharing this with you.
He was at least 6 feet tall, blonde, azure-eyed, looking like a robust pig-fed mid-westerner with an identity crisis. I was my 5’2” chocolate hair and eyed self, twenty years old, having just registered at the Munich hostel next door when I met him in the summer of 1980. Over a stein and a pretzel, I discovered we were both US political science college students.
He was bright, articulate and had a wicked sense of humor. He’d had an uncle who used to be the Mayor of Munich. He was one year shy of graduating from the University of Minnesota. “One day I will return to Munich and become the Mayor of this beloved town,” he said proudly. He then asked if I wanted a tour guide.
“I came to Munich to see Dachau.” I said innocently.
“That’s no place for a person to go alone. You don’t need to go there. Munich is a cosmopolitan city. The architecture is great; the culture here is top rate. Let me show you the Hauptbahnhof, the English Garten and then if you still need to see Dachau I’ll take you.”
I think two days went by in a blur, with mostly beer gardens in my memory. At the end of each day there was an argumentative session with him trying to talk me out of taking the train to the empty barracks outside of town.
Sure enough he was on the same train the next morning. There was no lively banter between us as we’d had between rounds of live oompah music the night before. We entered the “Arbeit Mach Frei” (Work Makes Free) gates together. I remember walking, with him following me, through the small box-like museum of old eyeglasses, mountains of ancient suitcases and dusty shoes, mounds of hair, and the pictures and paperwork of those who passed on the premise. I was completely silent in the room where the ovens were fed bodies incessantly. The brick wall had two half moon steel doors open to see exactly where bone and skin became ash and smell. My legs were heavy and I could not move. There were not many tourists swarming around me and I didn’t feel pressured to move quickly from exhibit to exhibit. My identity as a Jew had been formed with the annual movie showing skinny people in striped pajamas waiting to die and piles of skeletons dumped into mass graves. So it was true, man demolishes man.
When I finally escaped the confines of the ovens, I walked out of the dark into the German sunshine and saw an area that was where they lined people up against a wall and shot them. There was a large sign that prominently said, “Never Again.” Suddenly my tour guide who had been silent said, “That’s so ridiculous. Of course, it will happen again. People want it to happen again.” In that heartbeat, I realized that had it been 40 years prior or maybe 40 years down the road he’d probably have me up against that wall with a gun aimed at my forehead.
I agree with everything you have said. The feeling of helplessness as I see the “train barrelling toward me” is overwhelming. What can we do besides voting, writing to our Congress people (here it’s kind of a moot point as they all agree), fill out postcards to strangers encouraging them to vote, share on FB information detailing what is happening in this country/ where we are headed. But I don’t think this is enough to stop what is happening.