Light and Dark

Apart from the physical darkness that already covers most of the day I get to think about light and dark in different countries’ history. As a German born in the 1980s, history has had a dark tinge for me from the beginning of my thinking. My country’s history is inevitably connected to the guilt of two world wars and especially an incomprehensible genocide. And we deal with it, too much so, as some see it. The second country I formed a strong bond with is Latvia where history is blackened mainly from the other side. Throughout all times Latvia has been independent for 44 years now, from the Russian Revolution in 1918 till the Soviet occupation in 1940 and since the renewal of independence in 1990. There are many days when Latvians fly the flags at half mast or with a black ribbon to remember the victims of genocide, war and occupation. In Germany we still have a slightly disturbed relationship with our national identity and our flag. I’ve always been really interested in history and how it is dealt with in the present. Even with quite a bit of background knowledge and having read about other and better times, too, I think I still can say grief and humiliation are central issues when dealing with German or Latvian history. Humiliation by the ancestors’ guilt and grief over the millions killed two to three generations ago, grief over a thereby broken relationship with one’s homeland. Humiliation of the victim and grief over so many people killed or torn from their home and families or forced into exile. The positive side may be that, hopefully, the best is yet to come. Both my countries had their peaceful revolution when the Cold War ended. I am a bit too young to fully remember that change of times, but I know that even a year before the Wall came down practically no one thinking about Berlin and Germany and Europe and the world being ripped in half would have imagined they’d live to see the Iron Curtain fall. And while in Germany and in a different way also in Europe we are still working to “rejoin what belongs together” as we say in Germany, Latvia is working to develop as a small, yet independent state inside a cooperative Europe, independent especially of Russia, where it never belonged.

In Finland I encounter more extreme views of history. One of my hosts is originally from Cambodia. To her genocide is not history in the sense that it is something that happened at the time of her grandparents or even earlier.

Finland on the other hand seems to be the first country I get to know better that doesn’t carry a trauma on the front page of its history. In that sense this dark country is a bit lighter than many. I gather that though Finland was not independent for most of its history and also was at war during WWII, it got around to having a narrative of sacrifices made for a cause that still counts as a good one till today. And not in vain. This small country succeeded in driving out both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union and finally gaining independence. Having a history with a most important event to be proud of is an unusual thought for a German.

PS

As I am posting this ten days after returning home and one week after 11/9, THE fateful date of German history (proclamation of the Republic in 1918, Hitler’s unsuccessful Munich Putsch in 1923, the Pogrom Night in 1938 and the opening of the Berlin Wall in 1989) we are shocked, sad and angry about a hideous crime against the memory of Greifswald’s Jews. In many towns all over Germany so-called Stolpersteine  (“stumbling stones”) mark the houses where Jews used to live until they were deported and killed or forced into flight or suicide in the 1930s and 1940s. Small brass squares in front of the houses they last lived in state their names, year of birth and some details about their fate like date of deportation and date and place where they were killed. Last week, on that very 9^th of November, the eleven stones in Greifswald were broken out of the pavement and stolen. History is never over. And we must be vigilant and fight for what we believe is right. As Brecht put it, the womb is still fertile. As strange as it seems there is a bright side to this shocking incident: We talk about it much more than we’d have done otherwise this year. Now there are flowers and candles at the sites where the stones are missing, demonstrations of solidarity, services press and TV. Not the best marketing for our region that something like this happened. But it backfired and I'd like to see as a reason for hope.