It is easy to cruise through life without asking questions. Then everything appears normal. When I asked my 93 year old Aunt Maria whether she remembered a Mr. Neumann, she immediately replied, "Of course, Mr. Neumann was one of my father's best friends". And she added: "He was a Jew and he committed suicide when he saw no other way out". That was in the early Forties, 2-3 years before the end of World War II. One November evening my grandfather had taken me along to see, as he put it, a friend in the neighbourhood. I had never heard of him before. No wonder, I must have been some 5 years old. Small children mostly don't get all the explanations they want. To stay with my grandparents was one of my favourite doings at the time. I also loved to go with grandfather on extended walks.
My grandparents lived in a town called Pforzheim at the Northern end of the Black Forest in Nazi Germany. On the 23rd of February 1945 Pforzheim's centre got almost totally destroyed by the British Airforce. Some 20 000 people lost their lives. My grandparents and aunt survived, but their house got destroyed and literally everything got lost.
The years after the war were difficult, almost everywhere in Europe. Then came the economic recovery which took several years as one knows. Millions of refugees had first to get integrated. Damaged and destroyed cities and villages had to be rebuilt and we, the young generation, had to get prepared for a professional life. I opted for a career abroad, after having done a couple of years as a TV reporter in Germany. Paris and Strasbourg were the places I worked. My grandparents died, my parents died. Every now and then I visited my aunt who lived in a home in Pforzheim. All she could remember about Mr. Neumann was that he must have been informed by someone, maybe by my grandfather, that the Nazis were planning to deport him. I also heared from my aunt, that his wife and 2 daughters had emigrated to the United States at the beginning of the war.
Thousands of details, that is what life is. One not only has to try to find out about things. One has a duty to do so, if one wants to achieve a life in dignity. To know is always better than not to know. To see, better than not to see. How proud I have always been when I remembered what my Grandmother Leopoldine said once - I must have been 3-4 years old, "This Hitler is a devil". My parents never told me what they thought about the Nazis. All I knew was that my grandmother was right and the Führer was wrong. I would never have said a word about this to my best friend, knowing how dangerous it would have been for her.
My grandparents lived in a town called Pforzheim at the Northern end of the Black Forest in Nazi Germany. On the 23rd of February 1945 Pforzheim's centre got almost totally destroyed by the British Airforce. Some 20 000 people lost their lives. My grandparents and aunt survived, but their house got destroyed and literally everything got lost.
The years after the war were difficult, almost everywhere in Europe. Then came the economic recovery which took several years as one knows. Millions of refugees had first to get integrated. Damaged and destroyed cities and villages had to be rebuilt and we, the young generation, had to get prepared for a professional life. I opted for a career abroad, after having done a couple of years as a TV reporter in Germany. Paris and Strasbourg were the places I worked. My grandparents died, my parents died. Every now and then I visited my aunt who lived in a home in Pforzheim. All she could remember about Mr. Neumann was that he must have been informed by someone, maybe by my grandfather, that the Nazis were planning to deport him. I also heared from my aunt, that his wife and 2 daughters had emigrated to the United States at the beginning of the war.
Thousands of details, that is what life is. One not only has to try to find out about things. One has a duty to do so, if one wants to achieve a life in dignity. To know is always better than not to know. To see, better than not to see. How proud I have always been when I remembered what my Grandmother Leopoldine said once - I must have been 3-4 years old, "This Hitler is a devil". My parents never told me what they thought about the Nazis. All I knew was that my grandmother was right and the Führer was wrong. I would never have said a word about this to my best friend, knowing how dangerous it would have been for her.
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