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German grandchildren of Nazis delve into past


Rainer Hoess was 12 years old when he found out his grandfather was one of the worst mass murderers in history.

The gardener at his boarding school, an Auschwitz survivor, beat him black and blue after hearing he was the grandson of Rudolf Hoess, commandant of the death camp synonymous with the Holocaust.

"He beat me, because he projected on me all the horror he went through," Rainer Hoess said, with a shrug and a helpless smile. "Once a Hoess, always a Hoess. Whether you're the grandfather or the grandson -- guilty is guilty."
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Germans have for decades confronted the Nazi era head-on, paying billions in compensation, meticulously teaching Third Reich history in school, and building memorials to victims. The conviction Thursday in Munich of retired Ohio autoworker John Demjanjuk on charges he was a guard at the Sobibor Nazi death camp drives home how the Holocaust is still very much at the forefront of the German psyche.
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"The Nazis -- the first generation -- were too ashamed to talk about the crimes they committed and covered everything up. The second generation often had trouble personally confronting their Nazi parents. So now it is up to the grandchildren to lift the curses off their families," said Bode.
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These days Rainer Hoess lectures schoolchildren about the Nazi era and anti-Semitism. A few months ago, he visited Auschwitz for the first time and met a group of Israeli students.

That day was "probably the most difficult and intense day in my life," Hoess said, but it was also liberating because he realized that the third generation of Jews after the Holocaust did not hold him responsible. One Israeli girl even gave him a little shell with a blue Star of David painted on it, which he now wears around his neck on a black leather necklace at all times.

This article is about as good a short documentation of current Germany as i've found.  Highly apropos to this discussion. Of course, these stories are about the grandchildren of the worst of the worst. Likely quite different for the grandchildren of the millions of small cogs.

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." - Anaïs Nin

by Crazy Horse on Sun May 15th, 2011 at 06:39:25 AM EST
But the problem is to even identify most of those who do not repudiate the acts of their fore-bearers, let alone to estimate their proper proportion of the population.  

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Sun May 15th, 2011 at 12:26:17 PM EST
[ Parent ]
A (fictional, I think) film appropo to this subject, and which I quite enjoyed, was called "The Nasty Girl" [Das schreckliche Mädchen] and was about a schoolgirl who did some research and wrote about her community's involvement in the Holocaust. It was a 1990 East German film.

'tis strange I should be old and neither wise nor valiant. From "The Maid's Tragedy" by Beaumont & Fletcher
by Wife of Bath (kareninaustin at g mail dot com) on Mon May 16th, 2011 at 11:19:40 AM EST
[ Parent ]

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