Ar_home_b_search
 

It was 1948. 3 years after the war ended and 3 years before I was born. Our neighbors invited my mom my 5-year old brother to their kid's birthday party. In the middle of the party somebody asked my brother what he would do when he grows up.

"When I grow up, I will get a machine gun and  tra-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta... kill all the Germans in the world", declared Mark. 

toy gunOur neighbors were ...Germans. Germans, who lived in Russia since Katherine the Great, but ...Germans. They were exiled to Central Asian republic of Tajikistan by Stalin because they were Germans... It was very awkward. But I can't judge a 5-year old. The word "German" was the same as Nazi, it was used everywhere, in the movies, books, radio... We were saying "Germans came", not Nazi came. "German army", not Nazi army. We hated all German, and my brother Mark just said what he heard everywhere.

During the war my mom was a doctor. In 1943 their military hospital suddenly got several wounded Germans from a nearby front line, and there was no one in the Hospital, who could speak German, and they asked my Jewish mom, who knew Yiddish, so she could easily understand German, to help translate at the interrogation, but the captives yelled "Jude", and spit in her face, and refused to talk... And at night she tried to kill them. She was demoted to captain, but she was not court marshalled...

I can't judge her, she lost her husband (my brother's father), she lost both her parents...

I have not forgotten about any of this. But I do not hate German. The Germans I know and do not know did not kill my grandparents... I do not look at Porsche and see dreaded heavy German tanks "Ferdinand", built by Porsche (That was actually his first name: Ferdinand Porsche)

I drive Mercedes and do not think that during the war Mercedes-Benz was a key to the construction of Nazi Germany's Luftwaffe and war machine. My son drives BMW, which produced motorcycles that you see in the movies, military trucks and engines for planes. I know that my Mercedes has nothing to do with use of slave labor.

We all have to move on. But never forget. I am trying to do both.

 
Post is included in group: Dissent
Post is included in group: Family Ties
Post is included in group: POSITIVE ATTITUDE for the Weary Soul
Post is included in group: Silent Majority
Post is included in group: The Optimist

11 Comments on Everything German. A Tale From The Past

DEC
12
2009
447,818 Points 36 Featured Posts Outside Blog Attended Rain Camp Called Shot Master

Jon,

I think the problem then as now is identifying people by their country or race of origin, as apposed to who they are!

"Our neighbors were ...Germans. Germans, who lived in Russia since Katherine the Great, but ...Germans. They were exiled to Central Asian republic of Tajikistan by Stalin because they were Germans..."   Just like today's bigots Stalin was wrong! Katherine lived from 9 July 1762 to 6 November 1796 by WW2 these were Russians!!!!!!!!!!

Personally, I'm an American! Not a schizophrenic hyphenated dysfunctional, ethnic freak. I am a Euro-centrist, there is no other logical explanation for the American miracle! My Great, Great, Great Grandfather Jacques emigrated here from France in 1608, for freedom to practice his religion. Jacques's son Anton was the father of my Great Grandfather Robert Stephen Saxby Archambault, who fathered my Grandfather, William Jennings Bryant Archambault. I'm proud to be William J Archambault Jr named for my father.

I judge people by who they are not accendens of birth! You my friend are an American! If you must hypthane you are an American-by-choice!

Bill

PS: So many of my Michigan friends and clients are Jewish, but I could never understand them driving VW Bugs to college and Mercedes to work! But, the biggest absurdity was promoting gun control!

 
7:44pm • #1
980,379 Points 81 Featured Posts Outside Blog Attended Rain Camp Called Shot Master

Bill - of course, but world is not like America.

We lived in socialist Russia, and by all references that was a classless society, and that's what we thought it was. But the first and only classless society i saw here in the US.

Yeah, we kept saying that people were comrades, but the reality was far from that. Communism as religion was very pure. Socialism, as its only known practical application was very far from it.

Because money was removed from being the dominant currency (value of the money was much more limited than here), there was power in its place. Party functioners had not much money, but access to goods, and their ruble stretched much farther, as they did not have to bribe or buy on the black market.

And yes, I know, I am the American. Not by choice that much, but by a well used chance. My choice was there long before the chance presented itself.
8:01pm • #2
DEC
13
2009
210,219 Points 3 Featured Posts Localism Sponsor Outside Blog Attended Rain Camp

Jon,  There are people in the modern world who still hold prejudice to an extreme.  When I lived in Fl I had clients who were both Doctors and Jewish.  They had a son who was at deaths door with an endocrine disorder.  My Pediatrician was an acclaimed endocrinologist.  The couple was traveling out of state to get treatment for their son.  I asked them why they did not go to Dr. so and so.  Their answer floored me.

He was Lebanese and they refused to allow him to touch their son.  I knew this man and how wonderful he was.  He loved all children and I trusted him with the life of my child.  These were highly educated people who allowed their personal prejudiced to impact the treatment of their own child.

I had another Jewish friend whose husband was a member of Mensa.  When she found out I was half German she told me never mention that to my husband.  I could hardly believe how ridiculous people could be.
7:44am • #3
756,523 Points 16 Featured Posts Localism Sponsor Outside Blog Called Shot Master

Jon - The shame of it all that it was a government that had taken over Germany and made it a Nazi Germany. Not unlike what is happening to our country now that the communists have taken over and making this country into what it has never been before.

Can't judge the people for what governments do, but we can judge a people if they don't fight back to get the country back from dictators and thugs.
10:28am • #4
1,063,868 Points 156 Featured Posts Outside Blog Attended Rain Camp Called Shot Master

Jon, new generations come along, but history is always there. The current Germans did not participate in the horrors of that war.
11:04am • #5
1 Featured Post Called Shot Master

Jon,

It is a strange post. One that when you read it, it is difficult to say something. I think "hate German" mentality is very strong in many countries in the Middle East (the enemy would be not Germans) and many other places around the world.
1:41pm • #6
980,379 Points 81 Featured Posts Outside Blog Attended Rain Camp Called Shot Master

Bonnie - I think my mom felt differently from me.

I knew people who, as kids, survived the Leningrad blockade (1941-1943). After dinner she would wipe the table and get all bread crumbs, and she would never throw the crumbs away. When their children would do that, she slapped them.

Could I judge her?

America is unique in its openness, not the rest of the world that much. And as immigrants, we tend to keep that baggage of distrust. 
7:58pm • #7
980,379 Points 81 Featured Posts Outside Blog Attended Rain Camp Called Shot Master

Nicholas - governments are what we allowed them to be, or did  not fight for making them what we need to make them to be.

In this sense we deserve what we get. Look around. It is true.
8:00pm • #8
980,379 Points 81 Featured Posts Outside Blog Attended Rain Camp Called Shot Master

Gary - I know, and I am OK with it.

Among my friends and good acquaintainces are people from Iran and Israel, Egypt and Lebanon, Russia and Sweden, and it is OK. I can't imagine this in any other place. Some of them would not be talking to each other in any other place, just in America
8:04pm • #9
DEC
14
2009
367,965 Points 38 Featured Posts Outside Blog Hit Router Called Shot Master

Jon - Prejudice is human nature, but it can be overcome by thinking!  Thank you for relaying that moving story of your Mother.
6:28pm • #10
980,379 Points 81 Featured Posts Outside Blog Attended Rain Camp Called Shot Master

Wendy - Prejudice is a weird thing. There are no blacks in Russia, never have been. And I have not seen bigger racists than Russians, when they come to America.

Where it comes from? How people, that claim they ran from oppression and discrimination, come here and ... start doing exactly what they ran from?

And these are people with often the brains...

Go figure
9:03pm • #11

What does the graphic say?

Leave a response…

(optional)
What does the graphic say?
 
Jon7 Ambassador_large

Jon Zolsky, your Daytona Beach, Florida connection

Daytona Beach, FL

More about me…

Jon Zolsky, Daytona Beach, FL. FunCoast Realty, 386-405-4408

Address: 313 S Atlantic Ave., Suite A, Daytona Beach, FL, 32118

Office Phone: (386) 255-5355

Cell Phone: (386) 405-4408

Email Me

hit counters View Jon Zolsky's profile on LinkedIn


Listings

Links

Archives

RSS 2.0 Feed for this blog