I wonder what I got myself into now. And why. The stack of books on nazi crimes and history and memoirs of children and grandchildren of nazis is growing, almost daily I receive notifications from various university libraries to my numerous requests and then there are the websites I haven't even started to check out. I know somewhere there will be traces of my grandfather, maybe just specks, little nothings. Maybe more. Probably more. I just found out that he was on the run for months, hiding from the allied forces.
Last night I read for what I thought was maybe an hour in this book by the granddaughter of one of the henchmen. She is about my age and she did the dirty work of digging up the facts after watching her mother die the slow death of alcohol, valium and depression. Her intelligent mother, the daughter of one of the henchmen. And with a lot of effort I kept on reassuring myself that this was not my mother, nothing like my mother and that I must not confuse these two women in my mind. That the similarities (age, education, family circumstances) are far too simplistic, too "easy". And yet. By the time I put the book down, forced myself to put the book down and try to get some sleep it was 3 am.
I wonder if I should stop this right now. I wonder if I still can.
I don't know. Since my mother just died I am realizing all sorts of things about her which lead to wondering all sorts of things about her parents and no, none of this has to do with a Nazi history but there is still that element of complete wrongness. You sure can't unknow what you now know.
ReplyDeleteThe important thing to remember is that none of this is YOU. Sure, you share genes, but that's not action.
As someone said in another comment on a past post, you go up anyone's family tree and you'll find some bad stuff. I can't help but think that some of my forefathers owned slaves. Well, I'm sure they did. What do we do with this information? I don't know. I really don't.
Perhaps, like so many, your grandfather feared for his career if he didn't join the party. Perhaps he was thinking of his wife and daughter, and what would happen to all of them if he was fired from his job, or if his research was suddenly buried or besmirched.
ReplyDeleteThis is, at least, a hope. Even if it's still not good enough; even if you wish your grandfather had more honor and humanity than that. We are all only human.
Sabine, in one of your past posts you quoted a long passage from the book, The History of Love. I was so moved by its truth and whimsy that I bought the book. I read it from cover to cover (at least, that's what I would call it if it hadn't been a Kindle book), and I was tranfixed. So much irony, and love, and reality, and sadness, and pain. Such a wonderful book.
Thank you.