A letter from Germany came to Victory Post, in the RT project. The author, who was born after the war, very personally writes a letter to war veterans and asks the question: can he apologize for the crimes of his ancestors? A difficult question, which he himself solves very humanly, extends a hand of friendship to us.
I was also born ten years after the war. Should I shake his hand? Should I wait for an apology from those whose parents, grandfathers destroyed my country, my city, youth and youth of our older generations? Can I demand repentance from them?
I do not want to demand, but I expect. And when I read the confession of my German peer, in which he apologizes for the guilt of his parents, it becomes easier for me. I understand that the circle is closed, and he closed not by forgetting the past, but by his understanding.
Although, if we talk about understanding, then we always had it.
My mother’s family returned to Kiev in late 1943, almost two weeks after his release. My grandfather, a carpenter and a bricklayer, was given the task of rebuilding the city. A brigade consisting of captured Germans was handed over to him. From improvised materials, from the remnants of the destroyed buildings, it was urgent to build an acceptable housing. Kiev was destroyed, there was nowhere to live, there weren’t enough working hands, and it was decided to use captured Wehrmacht soldiers for construction work. In the very first wooden hut that the captive team built, my grandfather got a room, where he then lived for several decades with his children - my mother and her sister. In the same hut, ten years after the war, I was born.
The team that worked under the guidance of my grandfather consisted of six people. Mom, she was then 11 years old, told how thin, miserable, quiet these Germans were - builders. Sometimes the Germans saw my mother when she passed them, going out into the street. Then they approached her and in husky voices asked for bread.
“Brot, brot,” they said.
Mom says that she always went to her grandmother and asked her for a piece of bread. There was not enough bread for the whole family, Kiev was only freed from the Germans, my grandfather received rations as a builder, but giving it to the captured Germans was crazy. Nevertheless, a piece of bread always passed from my mother to one of the former Wehrmacht soldiers.
"How could you?!" I shouted at her when she talked about these people.
She told me this story many times. She looked at me pitifully, was silent. Sometimes she said that the Germans were hungry, they were sorry.
“Why did you give them bread?” - I did not understand how a Jewish girl who escaped from Kiev captured by the Nazis with her family could give bread to the Nazis. In 1941, Jews tried to escape from the Nazis and local policemen. They were caught, driven to Babi Yar, stripped naked and shot. There are few Jewish families left in Kiev who do not have a piece of their blood and memory in Babi Yar. This grief and our family did not pass. After all this, have pity on the German and give him a piece of bread from his meager ration? It was beyond my comprehension.
I have been reading the letter of my German one-year-old for the tenth time, re-reading, peering at the letters and understand: he experiences the same bitterness as I do. Only I grieve, and he is ashamed of his fathers and grandfathers who committed these terrible crimes.
He is sentimentally trying to clear his conscience and, in my opinion, is doing this sincerely. He could remain silent, no one forces him to apologize. Thousands of those whose parents fought on the Eastern Front, killed our fellow citizens, our half-brothers and sisters, do so. They do not apologize because their conscience is silent. But there are thousands of those who are ashamed to be silent - and then they speak. And when they speak, it also becomes easier for us: we understand that we have a shared memory. Those born after the war have one, only one is the children of the victims, others are criminals. But all together is our past.
Once I wrote about Catherine Himmler, the granddaughter of Heinrich Himmler. Many years ago, she decided to do historical research - to find documents that could explain to her why one of her closest relatives - Heinrich Himmler - turned into a monster and became the culprit of the Holocaust.
In search of archival documents, Catherine Himmler plunged into the bowels of the Berlin libraries. Once she drew attention to a young man who in the search engines of libraries drove the same words - Himmler, the Holocaust, the extermination of Jews, Nazism. They met, the young man spoke only English. Their interests coincided - both were engaged in the search for documents confirming or denying the guilt of Heinrich Himmler. They liked each other, very soon the guy made love to her and offered to marry him. Catherine agreed, and then a terrible thing happened. It turned out that the young man was an Israeli from a Jewish family, most of whom were destroyed by the Nazis in the Auschwitz concentration camp. His family, Polish Jews, could not escape from Germany, was transported to a concentration camp where everyone was destroyed. Only his grandmother escaped death and was able to move to Israel, where David was born (that was the name of his beloved Catherine Himmler). David said that he could not marry her without the permission of his family, and asked her to come to Israel.
Catherine Himmler decided on this trip, came to Israel, holding David's hand, she entered the room where the family gathered.
Catherine said quietly: “My name is Catherine Himmler. I ... from that same family. "
There was silence in the room, after which the old woman, David’s grandmother, also quietly said: “Well then, girl, come in - we will get to know each other.”
And the impossible happened: the family did not mind the marriage, they signed. The story went on in a completely unimaginable scenario - Catherine Himmler gave birth to a child to her Jewish husband. The grandniece of Heinrich Himmler, who stood at the origins of the extermination of millions of Jews, Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians and others, gives birth to a child to a Jewish family.
Without fault, a born, small child joined the Jewish family, most of which was destroyed in Auschwitz, created by his great-great-grandfather Heinrich Himmler.
The spiral of history has closed.
The author’s point of view may not coincide with the position of the publisher.