A little story. I hope RT doesn’t mind.

RT has had a work assignment in Germany recently and he’s been over there a few times. Most recently there were some Poles there with him as well. Next week he’s going to Poland.

He says the Germans don’t talk about, well, you know what. He says he finds the Poles are far more open about our mutual past. Well, I guess this is understandable, all things considered.

We were talking about this, and then RT told me about something that happened a few years ago, when he was also on a work trip to Germany. A German colleague took him out to see the countryside, or something. They saw all sorts of castles and things. RT being interested in history asked the guy all sorts of questions, about what they were seeing and other things, but the guy wouldn’t answer. Eventually he turned to RT and said,”Look, RT, our history is not good, and I’d rather not talk about it.”

I’ve had that in my head for a while.

And I’m thinking that there is something wrong here, you know. What I mean is, Germany has such an interesting history, spanning back for many centuries. So many fascinating things happened there. And the German people have contributed so much to humanity. Good things. Wonderful things. (And bad things too, like everyone else. Probably mainly just, you know, things. Not good. Not bad.)

But it seems that the fact that they did something so immensely horrendous, a generation ago, made that this particular German couldn’t find it in himself to look at all the other stuff. In order to cope with the enormity of this thing that his people did, he had to cut himself off from his roots, from his heritage.

Quite a cross to bear, if I may be allowed to borrow from Christian imagery.

Maybe it was all magnified by the fact that RT was a Jew and an Israeli. Maybe just being with RT was too emotionally loaded for him.

So I’ve had this little anecdote of RT’s in my mind for a few days, and I’m feeling the occasional lump creeping into my throat. And I want to sooth this person that I don’t know, like a child, and say to him shhh, shhh, it’s okay now. It’s over.

And maybe it’s me I’m needing to say that to.