PenPenWrites

Talk about intergenerational communication, of one generation catching up with the stories of another. Many of us, as we reach our more senior years, are sorry we didn’t ask our parents in-depth questions about their past. And some of us wish our kids and grandkids would ask us.

I bring this up because a friend, Jeff Katz, has written a terrifically readable book about a terribly difficult subject: How Germans today are reckoning with the Germany of the Holocaust. (Unsettled Ground: Reflections on Germany’s Attempts to Make Amends)

• He’s done it by showing how his parents and their neighbors, who lived side by side for a century in a small town in Germany, dealt with the events of the time, and more importantly, on what a growing number of Germans today are doing to recall the past and reckon with it.
• The older history is, of course, a tale of neighbor turning against neighbor, and such stories are not unique in world history. But what Jeff is addressing is how the follow-on generations are affected.
• Many of those families don’t talk about what happened–and neither did Jeff’s parents until he finally prodded them into telling him about his grandparents’ and their experiences in escaping from Nazi Germany. It was his parents’ personal history that got Jeff interested in finding out whether and how today’s Germans are making amends.

The book stands on its own as a report about Germany today but the stories his parents finally told him about themselves and the grandparents (Jeff’s father’s family lived in a tiny rural town in Germany for centuries) are a reminder of how important it is for us to share our past with our children–even if it’s not as life-and-death traumatic as Jeff’s parents.

I have been to one of Jeff’s bookstore talks (see photo above), and from both his remarks and the questions the audience raised, I’ve come to realize that what the young generation of Germans today is doing to understand the past is fairly unique. Other countries and people with equally horrendous histories have not looked back to learn about what went wrong and why.

That leads me to a personal note about current events: We are living through a neighbor-against-neighbor time here (Let us not forget Minneapolis). I want to make sure my family’s future generations know that we, their parents and grandparents, did all we could do–and are doing all we can do–to stop it. What will those who are bearing arms (with military-style bazookas and grenade throwers) against their neighbors or applauding those who do tell their children? Will their children and grandchildren have to make amends in another generation or two?

Unsettled Ground: Reflections on Germany’s attempts to make amends: You can find the hardcover at independent bookstores such as Wonderland Books and Politics & Prose, as well as at Bookshop.org, and all three editions at Amazon. You can also read an excerpt and early reviews at Jeff’s website.s

photo: courtesy Jeff Katz and Wonderland Books