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Thread ID: 10026 | Posts: 1 | Started: 2003-09-25
2003-09-25 10:31 | User Profile
[QUOTE] [B]No Need to Feel Sorry for the Germans[/B]
By Marek Edelman* Posted: Thursday, September 11, 2003
ARTICLES
Tygodnik Powszechny (Kraków)
Publication Date: August 17, 2003
The portrayal of Germans as victims of the last world war is becoming increasingly controversial for Germany's neighbors. Russia, the Czech Republic and Poland are growing alarmed by the initiative to establish a Center against Expulsions in Berlin. What intends to be a replica of the U.S. Holocaust Museum will aim to tell the story of Germans who were relocated to Germany proper out of Russia and Central Europe under the Potsdam Agreements between the Great Powers which ended the Second World War. The idea of the Center has been criticized by Marek Edelman, the last surviving leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Following is a translation of a forthright interview, which he gave to Poland's "Tygodnik Powszechny."
Tygodnik Powszechny (8/17/03)
No Need to Feel Sorry for the Germans
Interview with Marek Edelman*
Krzysztof Burnetko and Jaroslaw Makowski of TYGODNIK POWSZECHNY: Does the pain of a German whose child was covered with rubble during an escape from bombarded Swinoujscie have to be lesser than the pain of a Polish woman whose son was tortured to death in the Pawiak prison? Or the pain of a Jewish woman who miraculously survived, but lost her children in the ghetto? Aren't war victims equal, regardless of whether they belong to the defeated or the victors? Helga Hirsh raised these questions in the discussion on building the Center against Expulsions in Berlin.
MAREK EDELMAN: This has to do with our morality. It is true that World War II changed the human psyche, because human beings were suddenly treated like objects with no value that can be loathed and destroyed. And of course it is sad when you are being forced to leave your house and abandon your land. During the war I had to move twenty times myself. Not because I wanted to, but because the German authorities jostled me from one place to another, or because I had to hide from them as they would kill me otherwise. But somehow I survived. It is not so horrible to leave one's home.
The Germans who were driven out after the war did not end up so badly. Surely, there were tragedies during the expulsions: murders and rapes. However, those who were transferred to West Germany escaped poverty and arrived in a welfare state. Americans helped them with the Marshall Plan and Mr. Erhard created an economic miracle. Then they started to buy Volkswagens and Mercedes cars. (Now they have a crisis because it is not that easy to buy a Mercedes so quickly, and they can only afford a Mercedes substituteââ¬Â¦) Even those who ended up in the communist part of Germany did not protest--with the sole exception of the Berlin Uprising in 1953. Obviously they were better off than Poles. Solidarity was not founded in Germany but in Poland. I wonder if any of them--apart from the oldest ones who still remember their houses and feel a sentiment towards apple trees or willows would ever like to go back to settle in the Eastern Fatherland.
It is important to note that expulsions are a feature of all European dictatorships. Communism transferred Tartars, Chechens, Germans, Latvians, Lithuanians, Estonians, and other nationalities. Jews too. Some were also saved by these transfers. Poles were transferred twice: to Siberia and from the eastern borderlands to the regained territories in the West. Somehow no one is building monuments to commemorate these victims of expulsions.
The plan to build the Center against Expulsions now--half a century after the war--is a purely political business. Moreover it is nationalistic and chauvinistic. In politics it is not that important what is being said but rather who says it. The same words--love, law, equality, brotherhood, justice etc.--sound differently coming out of a dictator's mouth than a democrat's. If the idea of establishing the center comes from the Federation of Expelled Germans, then this means that it is a camouflaged plot to return to the "Drang nach Osten" (Drive to the East). In German subconsciousness there is still this assumption that Germans have too little "Lebensraum," that such a large nation needs a lot of space to exist, and that they simply deserve it. In addition there is their arrogance and conviction about their special place in Europe. The center's initiators want to realize their own political interests using those sentiments.
Q: But the Federation of Expelled Germans is being more or less openly supported by the people of the '68 generation. Let's take the former student leader and a recognized intellectual today, Daniel Cohn Bendit. And Joschka Fischer, once the Green Party's leader and today Germany's top diplomat. Why do the symbols of the German Left--who not long ago boasted about their attitudes towards Nazism and how they came to terms with it--now walk hand in hand with the nationalist Right?
A: When in 1968 Cohn Bendit was being forced to leave France, a crowd of students in gesture of solidarity shouted: We are all Jews! Bendit must have been proud that such was the spirit of the revolt. Today he is joining those who shout: We are the German victims! Joschka Fischer used to be in the avantgarde of the psychological and social changes that came about as a result of the '68 movement. Today Mr. Minister of foreign affairs just plays a simple political game. For a person of such class it is a shame.
It is difficult to understand this change. Those are the people whose positions have particularly disappointed and angered me. As leaders of the student movement of May '68, they seemed to be aware of a German's place and what needs to be done with the German mind so that Nazism is never repeated--in whatever form. They seemed to have understood that if Germans are not extremely vigilant, if they do not adhere to democratic principles, respect human rights, and fight all forms of nationalism--like the cult of a uniformly national state--then some kind of Hitler may always come back. He would again start convincing the German nation that they do not have enough space between the Oder River and the Rhein and that they should spread out to the East or the Balkans.
It would really mean a lot to me if my friend Joschka Fischer and Cohn Bendit would start to think about half a century of German history. And about how careful one needs to be. Maybe then they would not support this plan to build a monument to honor the German victims.
Now--partly as a result of their attitude and politics--there is fear that it might happen again as nationalism is a hidden plague.
Q: So what is it all about?
A: About politics--about votes.
Q: But is it possible in the twenty first century Europe to earn political capital on such slogans?
A: Nationalism is still very popular, especially in Germany. Indeed, until not so long ago that country's politics was based on nationalism. Something like that does not disappear without a trace. That is why triggering off such attitudes is so dangerous.
Q: Maybe it is just a game? Chancellor Helmut Kohl also used to allure the expellees. However, according to experts on German affairs, he did so to take over their potential electoral base and pacify its radicalism.
A: I do not know what Kohl's goal was. I met a few German Christian democrats, people like Rita Süssmuth, who came to Poland. I know that I have no differences with them. If the word socialism had not been so discredited for Poles, I would say that those Germans were good socialists.
It is ironic that nationalist trends in Germany have always been stronger among the Social democrats than the Christian democrats. Nonetheless, I appreciate the famous gesture, which Willy Brandt made in 1970. It was an ingenious deision: At 9:00 in the evening he found out about the Monument to the Ghetto Uprising and he went there at 6:00 the next morning. Although there was nobody there besides his staff, the photograph of the kneeling chancellor went around the world. This was about paying tribute but also about changing the image of the German nation.
Q: So maybe the change in attitudes of the '68 generation stems from the fact that they do not want to be constantly held responsible for their fathers and grandfathers? For how many generations does one have to penance for the wrongs of one's ancestors?
A: This is not about penance. It is their duty to pay for those indulgences! Not one, or two or three generations, but as many as it takes to erase from the German mentality the longing for being a nation of masters. Why did it not cross anybody's mind in Poland to build a monument in honor of those expelled, say, from Warsaw or the eastern borderlands, or to the expelled Jews? Gloria victis--that could have been a reason. Nonetheless, the expellees do not have a monument here. Instead there are monuments to those who were killed.
I understand that Günter Grass sheds tears over the fate of thousands of escapees of a sunken passenger ship on the Baltic Sea. Indeed "Wilhelm Gustloff" was a tragedy. It is sad that women and children had to die. I have to point out though that during the war the Germans sunk numerous ships with civilians on board. Their submarines even attacked transports of American food for Europe. There wasn't a trace of humanitarianism. The tragedy of "Gustloff" cannot be compared with the crimes of Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Majdanek.
Q: People were dying on both sidesââ¬Â¦ Next to the monument to the expellees there will be a monument to the victims of the Holocaust. Maybe for young people this will not be a symbol that makes all of the victims equal--which is what the Center's opponents fear--but a symbol of a shared tragedy?
A: These tragedies are incomparable. Of course expulsions are dramatic for those who are being expelled. But the expulsion of Germans did not change humans' mentality and the Holocaust did. Transferring people does not mean taking their lives. Sure, there were victims of expulsions. But there are victims everywhere, even during times of peace--in traffic accidents, for example. During the expulsions people died accidentally. The Holocaust was based on death. So let's not exaggerate: the Holocaust and expulsions have two different dimensions.
Every war brings death on both sides. But Great Britain does not build monuments to civilians who died from the German bombs. And the Germans are constantly screaming that their civilians died during allied bombings. This proves their arrogance and their disdain. It also proves that they understood nothing from the lessons of World War II.
Moreover, the Germans awaited that war. Their whole nation was behind Hitler. They wanted to rule the entire world. Maybe they could have succeeded, if they hadn't made the mistake of provoking a war with America. This was also due to their arrogance.
Germans say that there were women and children among the expellees. What they do not say is that women were the strength of Hitler's propaganda. Leni Riefenstahl's films say it all. There you can see the thousands of exited German women and girls shouting "Heil! Heil!" They also do not say that throughout the war they lived off slave labor of the conquered nations, owing to which they were much better off than other Europeans.
Let's not have the illusion that normal Germans were not aware of the existence of concentration camps, ghettos, etc. If not all of them, then their huge majority knew of what the Nazis were doing. Thousands of soldiers took part in conquering Europe. They all had relatives whom they talked to or wrote to mentioning something about their service. Millions of Jews were not killed by a dozen criminals--thousands of Germans participated -sound differently coming out of a in the extermination. The scale of the murder was such that it couldn't have been kept secret. The transports of clothing, looted art and other stolen property from the conquered countries
arrived in Germany. All these furs, radios, paintings, gold from the ghettosââ¬Â¦The German farmers could not have possibly been unaware of the fact that the foreign workers who worked for them without compensation, were first taken off the street in raids. Especially since those workers could be lynched as a punishment for any insubordination.
What is also significant is that Germans did not liberate themselves from Hitler. They were freed from Nazism by America. The Germans paid with the so-called expulsions for their policies and for supporting Hitler.
Q: Could the expulsions have been avoided after the war? Could the Germans who lived in countries occupied by the Third Reich have been treated differently?
A: The political order in Europe at that time was dictated by Stalin. It was Stalin who took away from Poland the territories to the east of the Bug River. Maybe in the end that was advantageous to the Poles, because for the backward territories, which they had to give up in the East they got more cultivated land in the West.
Here we have to keep in mind the social psychology of that time. There was a general hatred towards the Germans. This also wasn't an undeserved hatred. That hatred was shared by Poles and Jews alike. I am not even talking about taking revenge for those who were murdered. What used to happen was that an elegant German officer wearing white gloves, seeing a man with the Star of David would slap him in the face. That German didn't have to be from the Gestapo, and he slapped for no reason. Now wasn't that humiliating?
Q: When the war ended, you suggested that the Jewish state should not be established in Israel, but in Bavaria, the cradle of Nazism, even if that meant the expulsion of Germans.
A: Yes. I said that the climate in Bavaria is better than in Israel. The Germans would also have a chance to penance for the wrongs that they committed against the Jews.
Q: Nowadays wouldn't that be considered to be ethnic cleansing? You protested against the cleansing in Bosnia. Weren't the post-war expulsions of Germans similar?
A: Germans were transferred because they lost the war. Moreover, it was a total war--with civilians. Twenty to thirty thousand underground soldiers fought in the Warsaw Uprising, and two hundred thousand civilians lost their lives. So who were the Germans fighting against?
Those who were killed need to be mourned before there is any monument to the expellees. There are some young Germans who have a guilty conscience about what their parents did. They don't not talk about a monument to the expellees. They tell me, for instance, how they realized that their family became rich at the expense of the war victims. Once a young doctor asked me what he should do with the small bags of gold he found at home, which his grandfather or his father most likely brought from a concentration camp where either one of them served during the war. I told him to use it to establish a prenatal ward in a Sarajevo hospital.
I don't know how popular the issue of the expellees' suffering will become in Germany. However, the expellees' circles have raised it and popularized it, and have now lived off it for many years, so it must be important to a portion of the German society. It turns out that Germany's denazification did not end in 1948 when the Federal Republic was established, but that it must continue. It is not only a question of politics but also of the nation's psyche. Germans--with the past they have--are not normal people. If you have such a past, you cannot be normal. With my past and my memories I am not normal either--but my past is anti-German, and I need that remembrance. I do not want to take revenge. I don't have anything against the Germans. I just do not want them to be recreating themselves as victims because then I would have to consider myself to be the henchman. And it is the other way around: they were my henchmen. By the same token the center's establishment would be anti-Polish: it would mean that Poles harmed the Germans by expelling them. It would also just as much be directed against all the other nations that were victims of the war.
It was the Poles and other conquered nations that were the victims of the war. I lived under the German occupation for five years. They say: there were good and bad Germans. How come I never had a chance to meet a single good German at that time?
Q: Not even one?
A: None whatsoever. I was not lucky enough to meet a single good German. The only ones I met hit me in the face.
I feel sorry for the young woman and her child who died during an expulsion. But I have no mercy for the German nation. It brought Hitler to power. It was the German society that lived off occupied Europe, lived off me and my friends, because I was given two hundred grams of bread a day and the Germans had as much food as they wanted. This is why it is so important that they do penance. Let them cry for a long, long time--maybe then will they realize that they were the henchmen of Europe. If building this monument were to lead to the view that the Germans were harmed by this war, then that would be a disaster. It would mean that they have the right to seek revenge. We all know where that can take.
Q: Maybe all they want is respect for their own remembrance. Expulsion is a part of their history.
A: What sort of remembrance! Did they suffer that much? Because they lost their houses? The Jews lost their houses and all of their relatives. Expulsions are about suffering, but there is so much suffering in this world. Sick people suffer, and nobody builds monuments to honor them.
Stop feeling sorry for the Germans, because they are not being hurt.
Q: You signed a petition to have a European Center against Expulsions, Forced Transfers, and Deportations instead of the Center against Expulsions. How is that European Center supposed to look like in practice?
A: What's most important is to show that all totalitarian regimes lead to such tragedies.
Q: And what would you offer to the Germans in such a center?
A: Nothing! So that they do not push their misfortune. They do not deserve mercy, they deserve penance. This is what they need to do for many generations. Otherwise their vanity and rudeness will come back.
Q: You do not even try to put yourself in their positionââ¬Â¦
A: I don't have a reason to step into the boots of a henchman. I cannot try to understand their mentality because they were delighted when they were killing me. Only God is so just that he feels sorry for the henchman. I am no God.
*Marek Edelman was born in Warsaw in 1921. In November 1942, he joined the Jewish Fighting Organization (ZOB). In April 1943, during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising ([url]http://www.english.upenn.edu/~afilreis/Holocaust/warsaw-uprising.html[/url]), Mr. Edelman at 22 was the commander in the Brushmakers' Area. A year later, he fought in the Warsaw Uprising ([url]http://concise.britannica.com/ebc/article?eu=407653[/url]) as well. After the war he refused to leave Poland. He studied medicine in Lódz and has been working for over fifty years as a cardiologist in the Pirogów Hospital.
In the mid-seventies, Mr. Edelman became an activist in Poland's democratic opposition, joining KOR, the Committee in Defense of the Workers, following workers' protests in 1976. In 1980 he joined Solidarity and became a member of the regional committee, and was imprisoned during martial law. Since the fall of communism, he has taken prominent stands on human rights issues. Mr. Edelman's many honors include Honorary Doctorates from Yale University and the Universite Libre in Brussels and Poland's highest national award, the White Eagle medal.
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[url]http://www.aei.org/research/nai/news/newsID.19157,projectID.11/news_detail.asp[/url]