To see part of the interview and Derenburg, where my grandfather was taken, click the following link: Derenburg.
It was quiet. That was the first thing I noticed. The floor creaked under my weight as I pushed through the door, but overestimating its willingness to open, I slammed the door against its supporting wall, slicing through the silence. The sound echoed across the ballroom walls as Guenther Eisenhauer and I stepped in. Gary trailed behind staring down into the screen of a Sony EX1 pointed at our backs. Large headphones covered most of the top of his head. I stopped moving and let the silence sit. Gary settled into a shot that he wanted. Here, in the Weisser Adler in Derenburg, was where the Gestapo took my Half-Jewish grandfather and his brother as forced laborers. I found myself standing alongside a former Hitler Youth member and good friend of my grandfather. For the first time, I stood in a place my grandfather wrote about as a 21 year old man.
My first interview with Guenther was not what I expected. Nor was my second. Or the third. Gary (my faculty advisor) and I filmed for three days straight in Hannover, Germany, and ate the freshest meats and cheeses one can eat. To get there, we took a taxi, train, bus, plane, then another plane, then a car to a quiet and remote neighborhood with green landscapes that gave any North Carolina countryside a run for its money. Landing in the dark of night, and being driven through quasi-urban streets with rivers and deciduous trees felt very close to home. The stories we heard shortly after, however, did not.
I learned many things about Guenther Eisenhauer this weekend. He is a complicated man and a principled man. We were his guests, and as such, he and his wife treated us with splendor fit for a king. After Guenther and his wife drove us to Derenburg and the Weisser Adler, I figured the least I could do was to treat them to lunch. Guenther and Traute (his wife), however, refused immediately. While we were their guests, they were going to take care of us. And take care of us they did. In the interviews, we talked in great length about his life and my grandfather’s life. They met in Atlanta, well after the war. In a small world moment, Guenther’s daughter ended up staying at my grandfather’s home because of mutual friends. When Guenther came to pick up his daughter, they had dinner at my grandfather’s home. Afterwards, Guenther and his daughter were walking down the hallway, and they saw a picture of a building in Frankfurt. He turned to his wife and said, that is where I grew up. My grandfather overheard him and told him, “me too.” Needless to say, they talked in great length that night. My grandfather talking most of the time, Guenther content to listen.
It is an undeniable fact that Guenther Eisenhauer served proudly in the Hitler’s Youth, but it is also an undeniable fact that this absolutely did not factor into my grandfather’s trusting and respecting the man he met that night in Atlanta. Guenther served the Hitler Youth as a young boy, and, afterwards, carried a heavy burden for what happened, as he grew up and learned the facts. Guenther was also the reason that the diary of my grandfather’s was translated into English and is the reason that I now can use it today for my film.
A lot of our conversations revolved around the time immediately after the war, the time period when Jewish families who were victimized began asking for compensation. My grandfather wrote on this topic when his mother was considering applying for compensation (her husband and daughter were killed by Nazi persecution). Guenther and my reactions to the following quote differed greatly before this weekend; now I am not so sure. While listening to a conversation of politics among workers of the railroad (where my grandfather worked after the war), he wrote on September 26, 1945, “By this I do not mean to shelter any Nazi. Absolutely no way!… Are they (the workers discussing politics) more victimized than, say, a German woman who will never see her sons again or will only see them maimed, and who, beyond that, feels herself deceived in her holiest thoughts? Or are they worse off than the widow of a concentration camp Jew, who, after all the years of struggle, grief and deprivation, can now claim her only compensation, that she is free of the Nazi terror, yet who now finds herself in virtually the same circumstances as before and unable to gain any material advantage there from.
Oh, there is much that is not like it should be or as it was promised.”
The widow of a concentration camp Jew he refers to is his mother. He is putting her situation on par with the situation of a Nazi sympathetic household who lost their sons in the war. Guenther said in response to this, “he is a very un-political man.” He finds my grandather’s personal take on the situation and his ability to forgive to be refreshing. But, he also feels that my grandfather is too unwilling to stand against the forces that caused his family’s and other families’ predicament. My grandfather’s trust in an “un-political” and higher order to the world takes away from his ability to face the reality of the situation.
On the other hand, however, the old saying rings true, “two wrongs do not make a right.” Perhaps his ability to forgive should be commended and, ethically speaking, we should be careful about how we categorize people into good and evil. It is true, that many German’s were victimized by the war in that they trusted a government that led them astray. It is an easy reaction to say that all people who did not stand against the Nazis are wrong. But, I think to myself, would I stand against them if it meant the lives of my own family were at stake? And could I see through all the lies that the Nazi’s told?
It is true that there are irreparable evils that were committed, and never would I consider belittling or forgetting this. And, it is also true that I can not pretend that my grandfather’s story even compares to the horrors of Jewish concentration camps. But still, I feel we have an obligation to know the facts and to learn from them. So, 60 years after the war, what is ethical? Should we always hate or punish those that played a part, even if it means an elderly man who joined the Hitler Youth as a small boy? I think not. I believe it would be unethical to hold his actions during the war against the man I met. But what about others, people we have never met?
I guess, overall I can say I agree with your grandfather’s very humanistic approach. I think he is right in recognizing that questions of guilt (at least the guilt of the mute mass “normal” people who have not been participating in the crimes of the Nazis) are difficult to deal with. The war has ended and the people all must have started to realize what really happened. When I went to school in Germany and dealt intensively with Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, I also asked myself the question, over and over again, of what I would have done and I asked it with anxiety for it seemed to obvious that I would have reacted in the same mute way. That really scared me, also in the sense of that I thought I might not be able to realize what is happening in today’s society. But I was a child as much as the young kids that had to join the Hitler youth and kids are only in a limited way able to understand their society and upbringing. So, I think Guenther cannot be blamed for joining the Hitler Jugend.
But at a certain age that changed, and I can reflect on my surroundings. But this is in the world today after going through all the education that is there on ethical issues and history. I don’t want to excuse anyone back then for not having seen what was happening, but I also think it could have been harder because the ideology of the society allowed Nazi Germany to happen and people were responsive and seemed to generally be underdeveloped in making up their own mind and to make an effort and question what was they were told and the absurdity of what was happening.
I just heard the story of a guy dealing with disappointments in the relationship with his Dad in the past (a smaller scale, but nonetheless interesting in regard of your question), and he said that he wanted to be angry with what his Dad was saying to him, when certain truths became evident, but he couldn’t be. He could be angry with the Dad of back then, the young Dad that wasn’t responding to him, but the Dad wasn’t there yet, he only had the old Dad in front of him, the apologetic and soft Dad that was really sad about the past. And then He could not be angry at all.
I feel it is important to see that the great mass back then (hopefully) is not the great mass that was back then. All this experience must have altered their minds and I hope this means that you can talk to them about that, which is the most important thing. And actually, writing this, I come to realize that it seems as if this is the biggest problem Germany in their dealings with Nazi Germany at the moment. They have worked through all of this theoretically and Germany is really sorry – but this is mainly due to the generation of my parents, the children of the generation that was the mute mass at that time. I know a lot of it through books and the accounts of other peope but I have never asked my grandparents about their experiences. I never dared to, and I don’t know why, maybe because I don’t want to think about their guilt. Maybe it is a general fear about touching those issues that are so hard to understand and seem so dangerous because they fundamentally deal with the question of human essence.
Julia,
You raise a number of interesting points. I want to draw attention to two of them. The first, “I feel it is important to see that the great mass back then (hopefully) is not the great mass that was back then.” I have a feeling that you just summed up one of the major themes of my film. In talking with Guenther, I absolutely believe that he felt true remorse. I don’t doubt that he went through a transformation. But, a question I would like to challenge you with is.. how can we live our lives to prevent this from happening again. Which brings me to the second point I want to draw attention to, “I know a lot of it through books and the accounts of other peope but I have never asked my grandparents about their experiences. I never dared to, and I don’t know why, maybe because I don’t want to think about their guilt. Maybe it is a general fear about touching those issues that are so hard to understand and seem so dangerous because they fundamentally deal with the question of human essence.” I could not have put it better. This is a very human reaction to these issues. This fear of finding something we do not want to find is something we all experience daily in my opinion. The only way to counter this is to commit oneself to expanding our own experiences. Because even though finding something that we didn’t want to is hard, it makes others more human and more relatable. And, my guess is what you find is not as scary as you once feared. With this in mind, my next blog post will be about just this: a discovery I made about my grandfather that scared me.
Thanks, keep sending ideas,
David
Hi David,
I’ve enjoyed reading about your project so far. The layers of both experience and communication are fascinating. I was curious to see how you would relate the material in your grandfather’s diary. I like what you’ve done here – setting the scene, involving yourself in the scene, and then presenting a piece of your grandfather’s own message, to be debated anew. You have put yourself in a place to partially identify with his message (and brought the reader with you), and yet your perspective must also be shaped by time and distance since then (part of why you are wrestling with his claims).
I just reread an essay by President Brodhead that was featured in the January Duke Magazine, and I think it will be good motivation for you: http://www.dukemagazine.duke.edu/issues/010212/fire1.html. A wonderful defender of the humanities, Brodhead says humanities are “the interplay of human making and human receiving,” and also involve a mediating force to “bring the past to the present’s attention.” I believe YOU are that mediating force rekindling the flame of your grandfather’s past. A humbling task, and one worth pursuing.
Brodhead also makes fascinating discoveries through researching a diary, in his case about the social and economic factors affecting education in post-Civil War North Carolina (which I’m sure would also be interesting to you!) It can be trying to tackle the controversial issues of both yesterday and today, but ultimately the dialogue of the past will help us move forward. By living outside yourself and entering the point of view of your grandfather, Guenther, and others that you will encounter, you are enlarging your own understanding and ours.
I hope that by the end of the summer you will have formulated a valuable example of what the humanities are good for. Then you should go have a chat with President Brodhead.
Best,
Rachel
Rachel,
Thank you for the post. I just read the article you linked, and I agree with his argument that we need a new approach to talking about the humanities. My initial reaction, however, is that perhaps “humanities” is too abstract of an idea. How do we define what constitutes humanities? Is it art? writing? The line is not exactly clear. So with this in mind, it is understandable that the humanities would be hard to defend. Defending such a sweeping abstraction is difficult.
I appreciate the post, it definitely made me think. Look forward to hearing more.
David
David I admire your courage and your integrity to take this on as a continuing discussion in the blog posts. I have enjoyed reading of your experiences and love the clip of the video.
Greetings from WHHN,
BJ