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« Hotel of Hope | Home | Every day daddies day… »

Das war einmal

Week of Books 2016 March 12-20 Tuesday 29 March 2016 The Week of the Books this year has the theme “Germany, was ich noch zu sagen hätte.”
Well… Germany. Often our destination with vacations, for Germany is a lovely country to be on holiday. A lovely landscape and you can eat and drink very well there. And, very important, a vacation there is not very expensive in general. So, we love to come to Germany. Once in a while a day with our neighbours to a cosy German border town, is always a party. When we are visiting our family in the east of our country, or a midweek in the south, than we usually cross the German border. Nice shops and delicious bratwurst, what more could people want.
I love Germany. Not passionately, but anyway… Only the language, I struggle with that. But singing a German song, I love doing that. Schubert, or Mozart. And Bach of course.

My father also loved German music. A relic from the years of war when he worked in Germany in penal servitude. A rough time. Fortunately with some good memories too: of the mutual companionship between the laborers and of the music, especially operettas. But furthermore the life in the German labor camp was a hell. When it was finally over and my father would go home, a Nazi who couldn’t accept peace, said to him that the Germans would return. “Wir kommen zurück!” And that’s what happened. A couple of years later our beaches were partly occupied by Germans. Not in a uniform and with guns, but in bathing costume and with little shovels. That had to be possible, those German tourists on our beaches. Fact is, the war was over. “Das war einmal” and now we had to move on.
My father had returned traumatized after the war and swore he would never cross the border again. Although that happened for a couple of times, without him noticing it. Back in the days my sister Holga and brother-in-law Bert lived in a village where the German border was exact at main street. A couple of steps and my father was back in Germany for a moment, without knowing.
So foreign countries were no option for a holiday. Instead my parents went to Ameland (an islandat the north coast of the Netherlands) and there they were, between German visitors on the beach. One day, Holga told, they saw a nice hole near pole 18 on the beach. In the hole there was a piece of cardboard, on which was written: “Besetzt von… bis…” Occupied? Taken? No, occupation time was over for years already, so my parents unpacked their things for a nice day of sea, sun and sand. But then, there they were, the German ‘pit-owners’ and it was a near thing that the war broke out again. For those Dutch in ‘their’ hole, no, the Germans were not having that! Even the police had to step in to explain that the beach really was public area and that no one had a right to a spot of their own. It took quite some time, bustle and patience, and the question remained whether the Germans really understood it. But in the end they left, to dig a new hole far away.

Years later, when time had faded away the sharp edges of the memories of the camp, my parents went to Germany after all. Perhaps then the war was finally over for my father. Because after that first trip there were more vacations to our neighbour country and they enjoyed it very much.

Germany may be that pretty, politically the land is facing heavily weather. Particularly by the refugees crisis there is a lot of quarrel between left and right. Yesterday there were federal state elections in Germany and the party of Angela Merkel, the CDU, suffered great losses in three federal states. The right-wing party Alternative für Deutschland has grown spectacularly. The AfD is Eurosceptic, national-conservative and right-wing populistic. It is a restless time. Especially because there is no obvious way to solve the problem with the refugees, and other important issues.
More than 70 years after the war, Germany is the Promised Land for tens of thousands refugees now. Pessimists see no prospects. A part of them due to all those immigrants, another part of them because of the profits of the AfD. The people are afraid of right-wing radicals. Optimists however expect that with capable policy the problems can be solved. That, by listening to each other and by cooperation, integration will succeed and that “Deutschland es schaft”. But most important is peace and tolerance. Because by commotion, hate and violence, no nation has ever gotten better, not even Germany.




Translated by Astrid Kostelijk and Piet Commandeur
 

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