Hard to swallow...

I've always been a history buff! In my formative years, I've consumed hundreds of hours of Trinbagonian, Caribbean, American, African, European and Indian histories! At a certain time in my life, history was one of the subjects where even the most mundane of topics sparked considerable interest, no wonder I was awarded for that subject, the top student in my graduating year. Even my mother at one point was convinced that her baby would one day become a historian.

I enjoy history because it allows me to hop unto a boat and sail my way back into that which was. But what if cruising into the realms gone by becomes arduous to come to terms with! What if in coming back to the present, ghouls of factual events take up residence in our sub conscious and identity?

Today, I explore Germany's infamous past, which till this day, haunts those that even dare to confront it.

I stumbled upon a friend's wall posting on Facebook. The title reads "German grandchildren of Nazis delve into past". Piqued, I took a peek into the contents.


What follows though are segments of buzz words that captured my attention.


The gardener at his boarding school, an Auschwitz survivor, beat him black and blue after hearing he was the grandson of Rudolf Hoess, commandant of the death camp synonymous with the Holocaust.

"He beat me, because he projected on me all the horror he went through," Rainer Hoess said, with a shrug and a helpless smile. "Once a Hoess, always a Hoess. Whether you're the grandfather or the grandson — guilty is guilty."

Upon reading this several facets of my human-ness emerged. I asked myself if the gardener is justified? Was the murderer of his loved ones ever brought to justice? Or should the posterity of a Nazi be made the scapegoat for the sins of forefathers? What's in a name? Is guilty, guilty in this case?


Today, Hoess says, he no longer feels guilty, but the burden of the past weighs on him at all times.

"My grandfather was a mass murderer — something that I can only be ashamed and sad about," said the 45-year-old chef and father of two boys and two girls. "However, I do not want to close my eyes and pretend nothing ever happened, like the rest of my family still does ... I want to stop the curse that's been haunting my family ever since, for the sake of myself and that of my own children."

Hoess is no longer in contact with his father, brother, aunts and cousins, who all call him a traitor. Strangers often look at him with distrust when he tells them about his grandfather — "as if I could have inherited his evil."


Should this man be made to feel guilty for what those before him atrociously committed? I applaud his bravery though in confronting this beast of the past. What's surprising to me though is the response of the members of those he label as family. Why would they label him as a traitor? The irony though is why should they feel that he is selling them out? My irony though is do I believe that they support the memory of their murderous fore-family member? This disturbs me.


"The Nazis — the first generation — were too ashamed to talk about the crimes they committed and covered everything up. The second generation often had trouble personally confronting their Nazi parents. So now it is up to the grandchildren to lift the curses off their families," said Bode.

It was only during her university years — reading books about the Holocaust — that Ursula Boger found out her grandfather was the most dreaded torturer at Auschwitz.

"I felt numb for days after I read about what he did," recalled Boger, a shy, soft-spoken woman who lives near Freiburg in southwestern Germany. "For many years I was ashamed to tell anybody about him, but then I realized that my own silence was eating me up from inside."

Her grandfather, Wilhelm Boger, invented the so-called Boger swing at Auschwitz — an iron bar that hung on chains from the ceiling. Boger would force naked inmates to bend over the bar and beat their genitals until they fainted or died.

Boger, 41, said it took her several years of therapy and group seminars to begin to come to terms with the fact her grandfather was a monster.

"I felt guilty, even though I hadn't committed a crime myself, felt like I had to do only good things at all times to make up for his evil," she said.

What hardship it must have been for the direct descendants of Nazis! A Canadian friend of mine of German descent one related to me a story that during her high school years she had been once verbally bullied by a class mate labeling her as a Nazi. What that child was oblivious to though was that her grandparents fled Nazi Germany with two suitcases of clothes and personal belongings and 11cents to commence regenesis on Canadian soil. Furthermore, my stomach actually turned, like a curdling milk on the verge of going horribly sour and unpleasant when my eyes skimmed over the mention of Freiburg- the small town that I've come to know as home here.

It touched home.

Unbelieving, I reminded myself nowhere or no one is immune from tragedy.

Also addressing the feelings of guilt, I wanted to whisper in her ears personally to throw a glimpse at Romans 5 found in the Bible. She would be changed forever.



Hoess acknowledges that his grandfather will probably never stop haunting him. After his visit to Auschwitz, he met Jozef Paczynski, a Polish camp survivor and the former barber of Commandant Hoess.

"Somehow, subconsciously, I was hoping that maybe he would tell me one positive story about my grandfather, something that shows that he wasn't all evil after all, that there was some goodness in him," Hoess confided.

Paczynski asked Hoess to get up and walk across the room — then told him: "You look exactly like your grandfather."


This last excerpt really pricked my heart. Its Oedipic pursuit of truth is what it reminded me of, only in the end though to get exactly opposite of that which you intentionally went after.



Combing through the 1654 pages of comments from the online article was a quite a feat. Some views are represented here. I leave you to sift the wheat from the husk.


A Mr teal said :dude! i'm as anti-Nazi as the next guy, but people oughta realize that beating up the grandchild of a psycho isn't the answer.

i liken the situation to what is going on right now in the media. Bin Laden was a monster, so, therefore, all Muslems must be too. not even related to him, even.

why can't we talk about stuff?

Nazi-ism is still alive, but called Patriotism, in disguise.

FREE SPEECH, folks! it REALLY DOES work!! and as American as baseball and apple pie.

and while we're at it, stop wearing clothes that look like it's made out of American flags. just as disrespectful as burning em, hoss.


But John had this to say: That's really something to read about. The children should not be held accountable for the crimes of their parents. Makes me wonder what the world would be like today if the nazis had won the war and eventually taken over the world. Look at Africa. Seems like something very similar is happening there but the world remains silent about it.



However, I could not resist the wise words of Mrs. Bond Street:This article strikes a chord in me on so many levels. So, many, many levels. Yesterday, I read an article about 3 Black youths in San Diego who killed a White youth while robbing him. The overwhelming majority of comments said things like, "Kill the Blacks" or "See What Those People Do To Our Society?" Because three, stupid boys did something atrocious White Americans want to lynch the whole race of Black people in America who had nothing to do with that crime. So, today I read this story about the grandchildren of Nazis and their abuse by Holocaust Survivors and I see so many similarities in yesterday's story. Here you have a society of people brandishing a small, group of grandchildren because of what their hateful, atrocious, grandparents did when they have nothing -- absolutely nothing -- to do with it. When will we stop finding excuses to hate on people? Hate becomes this perpetual cycle that people feel justifies an injustice, whether it is past or present. These grandchildren had no more to do with what their Nazi grandparents did as the majority of Blacks in this country had nothing to do with the evil acts of three Black teens. Whether it is Germany or America, the hate will never stop as long as people use it as an excuse to abuse, discriminate and dehumanize those who are innocent.

Last, I am happy to see this younger generation of Germans taking a stand, despite opposition. They are letting the world know that they are not like those who followed them. And, hopefully, with their voices, they will drown out the hatred of the past and move towards the future with hope.


B

I´m loving it!

Thus far I haven´t gotten a chance to scribe something on the educational system/culture in Deutschland. I feel that wherever I travel I become a part of that culture embodying the tenets of success that that system produces. And now that I´ve done my undergraduate studies in 3 different countries, Trinidad, Canada and Germany, I feel that a life long ambition of mine is being accomplished.

So the things that I love:

Classes at the PH (abbreviated name for my uni in German, pronounced Pay-Ha)are most times no longer than 2 hours! And in fact an hour and a half because classes usually start 15 pas the hour and end 15 to the hour (to ensure learners get to class on time because in some cases another class may be a 12 min bike ride in town). I´ve been really appreciating this becasue the sessions are broken up into very manageable chunks- this I suppose favours meaningful learning instead of the having-to-cover-all-the-work-tendancy that my school tends to have.

In the german system, students attend classes to be able to cover modules. So over 4 years they are supposed to cover the eight modules. In each course, students have the option of receiving a testat, or schine. The testat is simply a certificate of attendance whereas to obtain the schine, one has to complete a presentation, or essay, or reflection or some type of evaluation. Some courses, like the ones I´m currently pursuing can be completed to obtain a Hauptseminar schine which essentially require an extensive 10-15 page research paper in order to be given the certificate. What´s interesting is that without having exams for courses, I feel that I can focus more on enjoying the cpontent and focus more on life long learning that regurgating facts in order to be awarded a grade. And so far, I´m loving it because I feel less anxious and focus more on what matters in a lecture-the work and not the exam.

The Classes at the PH are superbly engineered! Each class has HUGE windows that channel amaying natural light. Even the light panels have reflectors so that the light can be refracted to maximise light in the class. Therefore some class do not even need artificial lights. I love it!




Oh and the views are immaculate! Freibug is surrounded by the Schwarswald or Black Forest which is an immensely dense wooded mountain range that is almost omnipresent from any point within the town! Kinda reminds me of Trinidad where the mountains seemingly were guardians protecting me from the nefarious North Coast.



German students though sit generally two exams in all of their university life. After completing say Module 4, they sit a general exam where they are required to synthesize what they have been learning for the last 2 years! And at the end of their 4 or 5 years (or 8th and 10th semester) having consumed theory and learnt how to apply it, write a 10 page critical reflection of a very broad topic. It could be anything form promoting literacy amongst low achieving students to comparing two theories of intercultual communicative competences. This explained by my friend´s roomate over sushi, could be stressful because you are required to to be competent in identifying critical theories and know how to apply them to real world scenarios. I find this AMAZING because it has always been something that completely intrested me. I mean I´ve enjoyed rereading my research papers because they´ve been my little genius on paper but I mean being given the opportunity to bring together a little of everything that i´ve studied for the last 4 years into one single paper would be ASTOUNDING!!!

At the end of classes, students knock knucles on the tables to signal the end of a lecture session. INTEERESTING!!! LOL

Maybe not representative of all Germany but in most of my classes I find that I´m being exposed to hot off the press research! Like papers where you see (Schocker 2011) bhind it! In all of my career at York, I have never had this up to date research. Reasons being perhaps that there isn´t such an emphasis on research within undergraduate classes, some professors are office occupiers or I just don´t know what! In one class, I was astonished to see how well my German peers were able to spit out theories that they had previously learned. If i were to do that at York or even UWI I wonder how many stuednts would be even capable of doing such! Is our system not meeting this objective? What are we doing wrong? Is our system to exam oriented?

I love that I´m being exposed to very different theory like German ones! Too often, professors on my side of the world are only competent in the Queen´s language and the results are that it locks us out of the rest of the world.


AND the things that drive me nuts!

Lack of wireless coverage on the entire campus!

Profs here don´t distribute printed course outlines on the first day of class. At York, it´s mandatory! Each outline gives you an idea of what will be taught in each class, the assignments to complete, their weightings, expectations etc. Call me spoilt but hey it really does organize me as a learner.

Having lived on campus for the last 4 years at York,I know the extent at how long some restaurants open! At the Mensa (or cafetaria) it opens at 11 but closes at 3! And on that note, I CANNOT STAND STUDENT SERVICE HERE!!!!! Everything is opened for like 2 hours in a day! So if I had to get a document from a faculty secretary, she would only be availbale for 2 hours in the day!! GRRRRR!


All in all though the positives outweigh the bad ones so I´m happy! In a lot of ways I´m loving the fact that my education is not commercialised! That I´m not a client only there to fill spot! And though it´s ironic that my title echoes the McDonaldsization of the world, I´m still loving it!

And I´m hungry for more!



B