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Ophelia 
Beyond Awesome
Fiction Moderator
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Joined: 25 Nov 2007
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 Posted: Fri Mar 21, 2008 5:22 pm Post subject: Like to join us? "Tearing the silence" by Hegi
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"Tearing the silence" by Ursula Hegi.
I've only read the first two chapters, and I have a lot to say, but I'll start with a review to save time.
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amazon.com
Ursula Hegi grew up in Germany and moved to the United States at age 18. As she grew older and raised a family, questions about her roots and her native land haunted her until, at last, she felt compelled to write about them. Tearing the Silence brings together her interviews with dozens of German-born Americans, and their confrontations with the taboo of the Holocaust.
From Library Journal
Hegi's outstanding fictional accounts of life in World War II Germany were the catalysts for this powerful nonfiction collection of interviews of first-generation German Americans. Herself a German-born American, Hegi aims to shatter the reluctance, even refusal, of Germans to mention the Holocaust other than to say, "We suffered, too." The Germany Hegi grew up with and ultimately struggled against is reflected in the personal accounts by other Germans, now living in America, whom she interviewed informally. For example, there is Eva, who remarks, "Just because I'm German doesn't mean I am a Nazi," and Hans-Peter, who says, "It's my heritage?yet I had no say in it." This singular work is an important addition to a greater understanding of the Holocaust and to giving credible cognizance to submerged feelings.
Kay Meredith Dusheck, Univ. of Iowa, Iowa City |
I'm going to write about the main theme of the book of course (the fact that the Holocaust was a taboo subject in Germany after the war, this is the reason why I am reading the book), but one aspect that strikes me and that I think the author does not particularly stress is that most of the people who testify are Germans who emigrated to America, and for me it is interesting to compare with the situation of Germans from the same generation in Germany and in Europe.
My guess is that it's very different.
From what I read the German immigrants were happy to live in the States, which is only natural, but I can't help feeling the dreadful irony of emigrating to escape the horrors of the Nazi past of your nation and choosing a host country where a certain number of people are likely, on meeting you, to throw questions at you like :
"Germany. Are you the guys who had Hitler as a leader?" (in 2008).
" You're German. Does that mean you're a Nazi?" (in 1984).
I can't imagine anything that would be more shocking or generally considered to be the worst possible taste in Europe.
Granted, in the two examples I've just mentioned the person who asks is about 14.
I wonder if adults asked questions like this too...
She obviously feels too guilty for being German to find fault with the persons who ask the questions, but to me it is revealing.
What can make people confuse being German with being a Nazi, in 1984 or 2008?
Now that I have done some griping and written what I thought Ursula Hegi had forgotten to say (!) I can turn to the book itself.
It is well written, but the themes make it difficult reading for me-- as I mentioned before, all this is close to home.
I have also bought her novel Stones From the River, but have just read from the first chapter. It sounds very interesting. |
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Saffron
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Joined: 01 Apr 2008
Posts: 371
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Location: Northern Virginia
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| Posted: Wed Apr 16, 2008 9:27 pm Post subject:
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| I'm going out to look for the book tomorrow! I hope a few other people join in the discussion. |
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Ophelia
Beyond Awesome
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| Posted: Thu Apr 17, 2008 1:29 am Post subject:
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| OK Saffron, I'll change the title into a question in case it might attract some attention. |
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axel
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Joined: 07 Aug 2008
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| Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 3:32 pm Post subject: "tearing the silence" by hegi
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| I found Hegi's book a couple of years ago and found it fascinating. I came to the USA in 1954 when I was 8 years old. We came to the US from Germany because we were abysmally poor, and we believed we could do better in America. The comments you heard about are nothing compared to the horrendous comments I, (and I recently discovered my younger sister) received by Americans of all ages and backgrounds. I was well into middle-age before I understood that as hard as I tried to fit in here in the US, I really never did. I had tried very hard to be anything other than German. The ease with which Americans could ask terribly ignorant questions still astounds me. At 8 I was asked if I was a Nazi. The image of the German soldier being some sort of automaton is the only one that American films presented. It was easier trying to hide being German than explaining things without being defensive all the time. It is my understanding that in Germany, pre-'54 the general discussion of the war, etc. was outlawed by the occupying forces, for fear of a resurgence of National Socialism. I spent most of my life being embarrassed that I was German, mostly because of the intensely ignorant comments and questions that I would receive--for heaven's sake I was born after the war, yet the questions, comments and insults were there. My mother's comments asserting that ordinary citizens could do nothing, and that there was much fear in the country seemed too defensive and I thought people must have been able to do something. I believed what American schools taught, Germans started the war and attempted to exterminate Jews and numerous others. It is the self-righteous judgment of Germans by Americans in particular that disturbs me greatly. As I became older and looked at American history I became more comfortable with being German. Asking Americans to look at their own history vis-a-vis Native Americans and African Americans can often stop discussions about expectations they might have as to others dealing with their history. Believe me, Americans do not know their own brushes with historical genocide, and I am not equating the immensity of barbarism. I am saying that before we complain about others we need to make sure we are not guilty of the same thing. I have rambled on too much already, but I hope I added some things to the discussion. |
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Chris OConnor
Rhodes Scholar
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| Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 3:52 pm Post subject:
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| Axel, I really appreciate your honesty and willingness to share your story. I hope you stick around because I think our US members could learn from you. I guess we can all learn from each other, but you illuminate some real biases that us Americans tend to have. |
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Ophelia
Beyond Awesome
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| Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 5:12 pm Post subject:
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Hello Axel, it's a pleasure to have you with us.
I only recently read the last chapters of Tearing the Silence and it's really an excellent book, I imagine it must have been a great help for readers who are German immigrants, and it's a mind-opener for someone like me.
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| It is my understanding that in Germany, pre-'54 the general discussion of the war, etc. was outlawed by the occupying forces, for fear of a resurgence of National Socialism. |
Interesting. I didn't know about this.
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| My mother's comments asserting that ordinary citizens could do nothing, and that there was much fear in the country seemed too defensive and I thought people must have been able to do something. |
My impression is that many Germans from the next generation must have felt like this.
In the book the immigrants' parents keep repeating "We didn't know". This is didfficult to ascertain. Some people must have known , or guessed something, but what could they have done? They could have acted at the beginning of the persecutions against the Jews, before Hitler was elected, but once he was in power it seems that the country was run like a dictatorship, and a very efficient one at that. Even if you've seen trains and camps, what can an individual do in a country at war? I suppose you could write to the newspapers in a non-occupied country, but then what? You could join an underground movement, but that's if you're willing to risk your life.
This is what Trudi, Hegi's character from Stones from the River, does: she hides Jews. But this supposes great courage, and having escaped the centuries of prejudices and hatred against the Jews that Europe had known, plus Nazi propaganda, so that you are willing to take risks for someone who is not in your "in-group". That's a lot of "ifs".
About what people knew just after the war, there was certainly denial, or perhaps people not knowing with one part of their minds and yet having heard rumours.
In "Small talk", p 233, the narrator, whose mother always maintained that she didn't know, relates a scene in Germany in 1945. They were in a refugee camp, and their hair had to be deloused and cut short.
"We had to go to a community shower. My mother was terrified that it wouldn't be water, that we would get gassed. She must have known at some point. This was never discussed." |
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axel
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| Posted: Fri Aug 08, 2008 9:05 am Post subject:
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Good Morning,
The issue of, "What could we have done?" is interesting from a historical perspective.
A couple of anecdotes from conversations with people of my parent's generation. A neighbor disappeared during the war, returned several months later, emaciated. Periodically during the night he could be heard screaming. He never spoke of where he was during the time he was gone; no one asked or wanted to go there. An efficient way to control others.
The local priest spoke out against Hitler; parishioners helped him disappear because the Gestapo was looking for him. He periodically reappeared, said Mass, and disappeared again just as quickly. No one could be trusted.
In German the word "heil" means both hail and heal. Professionals upon seeing each other on the street were to say "Heil Hitler," before any other greeting. One said "Heil Hitler," the other responded "You do it, I can't." The aside to the person telling the story was that if they didn't know each other very well he might be on his way to jail for the "disrespectful" comment he made.
As I said it's interesting from a historical perspective. To me, it is much more important and terribly unsettling to think about how we will look at our time from a viewpoint in the future. In comparing present day America to other times I consider what happened to Valerie Plame and her husband. If the government can do it to them for speaking out what can happen to someone with effectively no power? Lies to war, and thousands of Iraqis killed in an American war of choice. What rationalizations will we use to tell our children and grandchildren about what we did or didn't do? How many Americans said people were unpatriotic for asking questions post 9/11? It seems to me, if we couldn't, didn't, ask questions we have little right to complain about others. In fact it smacks of hypocrisy. |
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