Re: Jews in Nazi Germany

Kees Vanderheyden (keesv@sympatico.ca)
Tue, 20 May 1997 19:32:53 -0400 

I'd like to share this moment in my live when I got a a bit closer to
making peace, in my own way.

                                                                LUNCH IN VENICE
                                                                   Summer 1990

        More or less systematically, since the war=92s end, I have searched in
the hope of finding the German general and his soldiers who occupied our
beautiful house in Oisterwijk (Holland) during the summer and fall of
1944. I nourish an old dream of reconciling myself with our ennemies of
that time to contribute my small part in shaping the greater human
fraternity. It is a difficult path to find the balance between the
garden of forgiveness and the desert of condemnation.

        I=92ve often run my eye down the indices of history books hoping to
uncover the name of General Schliemann (was is really his name?), or
I=92ve gently recalled the days of wartime with German colleagues when I
would meet them quite regularly at international television conferences
when these reunions occurred during the Festival of the Prix Jeunesse in
Munich. =


        My problem lies with the fact that people my age were not soldiers at
that time. I need to find colleagues at least ten years older than me.
But if I do, I don=92t really know how to broach this delicate subject.
What do they think of this terrible past? Have they memories they would
prefer to forget ? Do they have an itch to talk about it? Moreover, it=92=
s
one thing to recall these memories but quite another to think of
reconciliation. I haven=92t any idea how to pursue this but the quest
haunts me during my travels.

        And so I happen to meet a German older than me, Hanz Gert, who occupies
an obscure post on German public television. Soft eyes, an attentive
look, well spoken he has an air and language of a philosopher. He is
very well read and seems to pursue hope for the human race. His
interventions at these meetings are so long-winded, so full of ideas
difficult to comprehend and so far removed from daily reality that we
sort of shrink in our chairs when Hanz takes the floor. We fear this
gentle orator less for his complex ideas than for the time he takes to
state them. Putting aside his philosophic flights, we all like this
elderly gray-haired German very much. He has a spirit devoid of malice
but full of anguish and dejection.

        In 1900 we take part, the two of us, in a conference of INPUT
(International Public Television conference) in Venice. We stay at the
same hotel. I leave my room to go downstairs for breakfast in the hotel
dining room bordering the lagoon, with a magnificent view of San Giorgio
Island where the conference takes place.  Hanz is seated alone at a
table, looking preoccupied, lost in thought, but I decide to join him
for coffee and a roll.

        How the topic arises I don=92t know, but Hanz suddenly begins to speak o=
f
his tour of duty as a German soldier, a member of the occupation forces
in France during World War II. I sit openmouthed. This
philosopher-humanitarian took part in crushing France! I let him speak,
ask some questions. How did he feel, an educated sensitive ham, having
been a member of an army which brutalized people and snatched away their
freedom ? Hanz confides that he has been profoundly traumatized by this
experience which led him thereafter to formulate some deep convictions.

        I then recount my own experience as a Dutch child under German
occupation and speak of my hope that the two opponents will somehow
succeed in coming to grips with the past. I do not dare to put forth the
question of reconciliation but I have the impression that it is
beginning to happen, discretely, beneath the surface.

        I=92m not conscious of how breakfast with Hanz came to a close, but I
cherish an extremely vibrant picture of this encounter in Venice. I see
the restaurant bathed in the beautiful morning light, dotted with white
table linen, that superlative view of San Giorgio, and in the air a
feeling of comforting relief and joy. =


        Today my search goes on. One day I hope to sit down at a table with the
soldiers of Oisterwijk or their children, to turn the page together and
to bask in the sunshine. In a real peace !!

Kees Vanderheyden
Mont-Saint-Hilaire, Canada