One last exciting personal mission before I leave Berlin (for now). Thank you in advance friends in or near Essen for hosting me as I come your way next week to look for one last remaining unaccounted family member who vanished during the war. My Mum only just found out about my Great Uncle Heymans/Heijmans. All we know was that he was born on 10 April 1929. My family first presumed that he must be have been killed in the camps like so many others - but lets not jump to easy conclusions. Anything could be possible. What about the thousands of German / Jewish (and other) partisans and resisters hiding in drainpipes plotting to take down the Nazi war regime?; the many unrecorded Gay / Queer people who were both ostracised by their family and then killed in the camps?; the imprisonment of those with mental / physical differences and the love-stories across the battle-lines as jews and german-christians lovers had to flee into the unknown? Whilst its only understandable to follow the logic of the dominant stories weve been told, my German friends have taught me so much. When we peek behind the curtains of history - the magnificence of the human spirit to resist, survive and change the stories can change the whole debate of whats good / bad and who is the oppressed, the oppressor and the victim. Of course Id love to find a whole new family alive. Who knows friends, we could have already shared a drink, gone out dancing to Berghain or even had a snog (legal - but awkward!) - without even knowing we were cousins! Whilst its a daunting journey, whatever I find in Essen - its been such an honour to be supported by so many other grandchildren of the war (whatever side they were on) - who embrace life to deal with its absurdity. Life has been a long battle of extracting peace and understanding from the spiritual warfare that we all have inherited and endured. We stand on the shoulders of our ancestors, with the purpose of searching for universal freedom -- the very freedom that they were denied. Still though, theres no place for nostalgia. We have to rise above the hatred, understand what happened and do everything in our power to prevent these crimes from happening to anyone ever again. Few other pieces of history have the same capacity to make us rethink humanity as the Holocaust. It forces us to reconsider our deepest assumptions about human beings and their inherent nature. The only way forward after the Holocaust is to hear your own heart beat in the backdrop of such death. That means abandoning blind faith, and using our cultural inheritance to fight against the epidemic of melancholy in the world around us. It is only when the sun sets on the entire Nazi mentality that we can firmly say never again. The role that us grandchildren have to play is by opposing ourselves against current regimes that are cruel, self-righteous, and hypocritical enough to be set on a course for destruction. The battle starts in ourselves. Essen here we come ...
Posted on: Fri, 10 Oct 2014 11:37:55 +0000
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