I have just finished reading a biography entitled “We Were the Lucky Ones,” which traced the experiences of single Jewish family in Poland through the Second World War. And while it specifically told the story of an individual family, it also recounted the atrocities they lived through. Prior to this book, I read another family story related to the atrocities perpetrated in China during that same time period. While I write from the isolated comfort of my middle class, seaside home in 21st century America, I at least have the benefit of hindsight and historical perspective and countless reams of documentation regarding those conflicts.
My first and foremost observation is that Germany, Japan and their allies were responsible for the deaths of as many as eighty million people during the 1930s and 1940s. I’m also very clear that some of the atrocities those nations committed are unthinkable, and arguably unforgiveable. Untold people from many countries were conquered, oppressed and slaughtered based upon principles of ethnic, cultural and military superiority, not to mention pride, greed and hate. If there were true “eye for an eye” justice in the world those two aggressor nations, and probably a few others, should have been utterly depopulated and wiped off the face of the earth. Fortunately, our better angels prevailed and the world chose only to directly punish the worst leaders and offenders.
I’m an American, and before I
spout too much about our being the good guys who entered the war in order to
save the day for everyone else, I acknowledge our own history also has to be
considered. Our experiment with the atrocities of slavery and the four hundred
years we spent dispossessing the North American continent of its previous
inhabitants is no less ignoble. Both chapters in our own history were based
upon those same principles of ethnic and military superiority. Having
acknowledged that fact, I return to my previous discourse by paraphrasing
legendary Arthurian ethics and reminding us all that the historical perspective
continues to show us that might doesn’t actually make right.
I remember growing up in the
1960s and 1970 being so proud of my German heritage. And, in my defense, all of
my German relatives immigrated here long before World War II. Nonetheless, even
my relatives who fought against Germany in the 1940s instilled that cultural
pride. Cultural pride is a good thing, but with the wisdom of hindsight I now know
that those lessons of cultural pride needed to be tempered with some wisdom
regarding the sins of the previous generations. No one ever told me what the Germans
did to Europe in the previous decades. No one in my family ever inferred
anything negative about others who were Jewish. I was just told to be proud of
being German.
From
that standpoint, I was a cultural innocent. However, with a blissful and in
some ways a blissful ignorance as well. Perhaps time heals all wounds, and
historical grace has its place in preventing inherited hate, but we sometimes
forget too quickly. We clearly need to forgive, but it’s dangerous to forget entirely
… and one generation is not enough time to forget such devastation and
atrocity. We need to own our past. We need to talk about our past. We need to
do so in order to inform our future. You can’t just extinguish eighty million
lives and chalk them up to the collateral damage of history. We owe it to their
memories that they shall not have died in vain. We owe it to their children and
grandchildren, to our children and grandchildren, to learn from our past in
order build a better future. Only then, will we be prepared to meet the
societal challenges of the future.
My
challenge to you is to speak with the oldest members of your family and capture
their memories of World War II before they are lost forever. We owe it to our
future to reconcile the past we all share. If we don’t, then we are destined to
repeat it.
