Beth, Mea and now your Uncle Poul. They all have such wise and enriching stories. Thank you for sharing their experiences with people like me.
You're absolutely right. Well written as usual!
Wow. Thank you. I am so glad you wrote that, and I hope Uncle Poul and Aunt Paula are writing or recording as much as possible. When my grandfather turned 90, his grandchildren peppered him with questions and a tape recorder and video recorder for the occasion.
My mother and another woman were working together recently to visit old widows, and Mom came away with this story:
http://spindyeknit.com/2006/11/a...ther-war-story/
Have you read After Long Silence? It's about a woman who has believed all her life that her parents were Polish Catholic immigrants, and who discovers as an adult that they were Holocaust survivors. What struck me most vividly reading it was that these people never had any of the complacency that I had floated in all my life, unaware, right up until 9/11. I was furious at the hijackers for taking it from me, while realizing that I, and Americans in general, had been privileged in a way few people have ever been in all the millennia of human history and prehistory.
That privilege in turn allows us to feel special, chosen of God, and it allows us to see the world in black and white, Us and Them, and not to have to think or learn or study too much: black or white, up or down, we only have to count to two. Which, I think, goes a long way toward explaining why Americans are weird.
Very provocative post. (I mean provocative of thought, of course. Got any flowers?)
My mother grew up in East Germany. Her 16 year old brother was drafted/forced into the Nazi Youth Army. He left and no one has heard from him since.
My opa ran a printing press in his basement and produced flyers protesting Hitler. Fortunatley, he was never caught. Their neighbours, however, weren't as lucky.
My mom missed school, was forced to live in small confined spaces and has a morbid fear of rodents.
Her childhood memories have shaped her into what she is. She has a fear of germs and will only buy the "best".
I, who was born and raised in Canada was called "nazi, kraut and various other names".
It is amazing how this lingers on and somehow, the world keeps repeating.
Wow. This is brilliant, Lene.
That sure makes me wish that I had been smart enough to listen to my grandfather more when he told his stories from WWII.
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