(no subject)
Aug. 13th, 2004 05:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dream_labyrinthThis has been an interesting day.
I have spent most of the morning on the computer, trying to catch up with everything I missed yesterday. I read a![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
theferrett's account of his trip to Washington with his daughter and the discussion about the Holocaust he and zoethe had with her. That was great and I had to give some comments. Of course, whenever the topic of Germany comes up I feel I have the right to put in my two cents. The discussion reminded me of things that made me go crazy in school. Like in Latin, we were not supposed to translate the word dux with the German word Führer, even though both mean leader. When spelling, we are supposed to say "double s" instead of "ss". The province I live in, Sachsen-Anhalt, would be best abbreviated SA (as Schleswig-Holstein has SH, Rheinland-Pfalz has RP and Nordrhein-Westfalen has NW). BUt because the combination SA has been used before, Sachsen-Anhalt is ST.
This is no sensible way of dealing with the problem. It trivialises the things that happened, and it blocks the way to an open discussion that is more than the Germans on their knees begging for forgiveness and writing "We are the bad guys" on the blackboard a few hundred times. Forgiveness might not be possible, but hatred and revenge is no way of living, either. The posts of today proved to me that many people outside of Germany don't see the Germans in the light of Bad Guys anymore. It's the Germans who can't grow out of it. And the East Germans are especially bad, because of the different way they dealt with Nazi times in GDR schools.
Sorry, I know I have posted about this several time sbefore, but it just seems to come up again and again.
Anyway, this afternoon I decided to go to a museum in another town, about 10 kilometers from here. As it looked like another thunderstorm was brewing, I wanted to take the car. But it was gone. My brother apparently went on a day trip with my car without even telling me. I love my family! So I went by bike. I took my walkman, and decided with that noise in my ears it was better to take the back roads. There is a path for hiking, and I thought that might be possible by bike, too. Well, at some places, it would have been hard on foot, too. There were weeds growing over it that almost reached my head. Especially stinging nettles, my absolute favorites... Can't be worse than the gnat bites, though. I reached the museum before the rain and was allowed to put the bike inside. Which was also good because I didn't bring my lock. I was just inside when the rain started. Lucky me! Hail to Friday the 13th. I always knew that was a good day for me. And it stayed that way, because by the time I left the museum, it had stopped raining and I came back home dry. Taking a different way, to avoid the weeds. It was hard enough to pull them out of the wheels and everything once. That meant I had to go a longer distance, but mostly on asphalt. I suppose I was faster, also because it was downhill. The museum, unfortunately, is up on a hill.
The exhibition was interesting. They had toys from somewhere late 19th century until the 1960s. Plus, there was the regular exhibit about the history of the area. To go from Slavic cups to dollhouses is quite an experience.
So I feel really good today. I had some exercise, some education, I even did some stitching on this picture I'm making. It's a cat lying in a bookshelf, and I got it for christmas like 2 years ago and never dared to start, it looked so complicated. It is, but I'm doing it bit by bit, and it starts looking like a picture by now.
And now I'm tired. But no sleep anytime soon. Tonight there is the opening celebration for Olympia, and I'm definitely going to watch that. I saw the one from Sydney, too, and that was great. But it's three hours or something, and it starts around eight. Oh, anyway. Tomorrow's weekend. Not that I would have to get up early if it wasn't, though.
I have spent most of the morning on the computer, trying to catch up with everything I missed yesterday. I read a
theferrett's account of his trip to Washington with his daughter and the discussion about the Holocaust he and zoethe had with her. That was great and I had to give some comments. Of course, whenever the topic of Germany comes up I feel I have the right to put in my two cents. The discussion reminded me of things that made me go crazy in school. Like in Latin, we were not supposed to translate the word dux with the German word Führer, even though both mean leader. When spelling, we are supposed to say "double s" instead of "ss". The province I live in, Sachsen-Anhalt, would be best abbreviated SA (as Schleswig-Holstein has SH, Rheinland-Pfalz has RP and Nordrhein-Westfalen has NW). BUt because the combination SA has been used before, Sachsen-Anhalt is ST.This is no sensible way of dealing with the problem. It trivialises the things that happened, and it blocks the way to an open discussion that is more than the Germans on their knees begging for forgiveness and writing "We are the bad guys" on the blackboard a few hundred times. Forgiveness might not be possible, but hatred and revenge is no way of living, either. The posts of today proved to me that many people outside of Germany don't see the Germans in the light of Bad Guys anymore. It's the Germans who can't grow out of it. And the East Germans are especially bad, because of the different way they dealt with Nazi times in GDR schools.
Sorry, I know I have posted about this several time sbefore, but it just seems to come up again and again.
Anyway, this afternoon I decided to go to a museum in another town, about 10 kilometers from here. As it looked like another thunderstorm was brewing, I wanted to take the car. But it was gone. My brother apparently went on a day trip with my car without even telling me. I love my family! So I went by bike. I took my walkman, and decided with that noise in my ears it was better to take the back roads. There is a path for hiking, and I thought that might be possible by bike, too. Well, at some places, it would have been hard on foot, too. There were weeds growing over it that almost reached my head. Especially stinging nettles, my absolute favorites... Can't be worse than the gnat bites, though. I reached the museum before the rain and was allowed to put the bike inside. Which was also good because I didn't bring my lock. I was just inside when the rain started. Lucky me! Hail to Friday the 13th. I always knew that was a good day for me. And it stayed that way, because by the time I left the museum, it had stopped raining and I came back home dry. Taking a different way, to avoid the weeds. It was hard enough to pull them out of the wheels and everything once. That meant I had to go a longer distance, but mostly on asphalt. I suppose I was faster, also because it was downhill. The museum, unfortunately, is up on a hill.
The exhibition was interesting. They had toys from somewhere late 19th century until the 1960s. Plus, there was the regular exhibit about the history of the area. To go from Slavic cups to dollhouses is quite an experience.
So I feel really good today. I had some exercise, some education, I even did some stitching on this picture I'm making. It's a cat lying in a bookshelf, and I got it for christmas like 2 years ago and never dared to start, it looked so complicated. It is, but I'm doing it bit by bit, and it starts looking like a picture by now.
And now I'm tired. But no sleep anytime soon. Tonight there is the opening celebration for Olympia, and I'm definitely going to watch that. I saw the one from Sydney, too, and that was great. But it's three hours or something, and it starts around eight. Oh, anyway. Tomorrow's weekend. Not that I would have to get up early if it wasn't, though.
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no subject
Date: 2004-08-13 10:04 am (UTC)For many people, this is thankfully true. But I certainly wouldn't say it's only the Germans who are left with the impression that Germans are the guilty ones. I just read a journal entry recently of someone who mentioned feeling guilty about being part German and having a Jewish husband.
Even worse, back when I was working for the Holocaust Museum and working evenings as a delivery girl, I was waiting at a restaurant for the order I was picking up to be done. A woman waiting for a seat struck up a converation with me, and I somehow mentioned both my day job at the museum and that I was planning my first trip to Germany. She basically went off the handle, asking how I could possibly justify going to visit a country full of murderers. She ranted for quite some time before I could make my escape, a perfect example of the prejudice, violence, and hatred she herself was condemning.
So, yeah, it's not everyone who bears the grudge but it's not no one, either.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-13 02:38 pm (UTC)Still, I have managed not to get in contact with too many of them. So I like to believe they only exist in small numbers.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-13 05:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-14 02:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-08-13 06:01 pm (UTC)They were not all monsters. Many really were simply following orders. The mentality to not do that is hard to break. Milgram's Experiment teaches that.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-14 02:59 am (UTC)The German army today tries to use a concept they call "inner ledership" (Innere Führung). Part of it is that any soldier can refuse to follow an order of he thinks that it is against human rights. But if he decides to follow the orders, he is just as resposible as the person who gave the orders. It sounds good in theory, but I think it wouldn't work very well in war. But at least it can make the soldiers think and not just sit back and have others decide for them.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-14 03:07 am (UTC)However, they have to deal with that after months of intense training to "do as you're told".
It doesn't work 100% well, but it does work in general. However, in practise... sometimes they follow the order, and are held just as responsible then.
Watch A Few Good Men for how that sort of thing works out after the fact.
no subject
Date: 2004-08-14 03:32 am (UTC)The problem is, if you'e fighting a war, you have to rely to some extent on your superiors, and sometimes quick decisions have to be made. There might not always be time, at least not in the mind of the soldiers, to question the orders they've been given. Especially, as you said, as they spend the first months of training learning to follow orders without question.