Facing History in Myself
Today the world is watching as South Africa stands up against gross human rights violations and genocidal destruction of Palestine. That’s a biblical moment, David versus Goliath, the latter an overwhelmingly destructive military and financial force; the unholy alliance of Israel, the USA, and the European Union.
South Africa can teach us precious lessons about our human interconnectedness. We witness dimensions of human decency, of honoring the human beauty in the other, of dignity that radiates powerfully above all cruelties of apartheid. I am so very thankful for this teaching and say:
“From shame to grace; South Africa guided me to sanity – to spiritual opening, the willingness to change and sharing from heart space. I want to talk about making peace with our past, accepting, sharing honestly, and breaking the inner silence and the locked-away feelings of shame and resentment. Let us be open to moral imagination and solidarity.
I watched a video streaming from Gaza. Men and women, on their way to makeshift blood donation sites, vigilantly navigate a path through incessant bombing. Despite utter despair, hunger, and exhaustion, they give their lifeblood to injured compatriots. These powerful images of life – love flowing through thin syringes from the veins of one Palestinian to another forced me to my knees – such grace, human decency.
We don’t have to remain addicted to guilt or passive-aggressive silence about our history as Germans, or colonial whites anywhere. It keeps us in a state of defensiveness, self-centeredness, and splitting off; My experience of that will be covered in the next essays.
This piece addresses my history as a descendant of collective colonial aggressor cultures. I have lived and worked globally all my life with willingness and open-mindedness for meeting one another. My vision since young has been to seek intercultural collaboration – creative as well as restorative. Essentially though, I accept the larger context of having benefitted from Northern, Christian white colonial cultural norms throughout my life.
I hope to share my learning and inspire young ones who want to work and live internationally and collaboratively. They will need exposure and a roadmap for navigating mindful living across increasingly hostile chasms between societies. I write this from a sense of urgency, witnessing the cruel, intentional extermination of Palestinian lives and homes by Israel & Partners. This is very painful, deeply shaming, and very alarming.
For a long time, I thought that the sophisticated, systemic extermination planned and executed by educated Germans was the benchmark of evil. And that in the 21st century, we would have learned and lived with greater degrees of enlightenment and mindfulness.
Not so, I am filled with deep sorrow today. We witness AI perfected, barbaric techno warfare with genocidal intentions masterminded by sophisticated well-educated destroyers of any semblance of human decency – or respect for human dignity – Israel & Partners.
I feel shame and disillusionment. Yet, I also have to face my ignorance for so long, following’ US / European mainstream media as a source of information. In a way, I too betrayed Palestinians, not looking deeper at Israel’s (and British) systematic and sadistic dehumanizing of Palestinians since 1920.
My parents’ generation and many before, still now, ostracized Jewish people. It was my wish to meet and befriend the outcast, othered. Lasting friendships were formed in many places. As a member of visionary, cross–cultural project teams we built global communications networks. I reported to Jewish managers. We accomplished amazing pioneering work together and still reminisce sometimes today.
I write this because I need to distinguish between the Zionist ideology of superiority and entitlement and on the other side, beautiful human connectedness between many people of diverse heritage, many Jewish people included the world over. Many engagements for human decency, supporting each other with care and dignity towards life’s unfolding, are taking place. They stand in profound contrast to those forces that brutally extinguish people they have ‘othered and demonized’. A racist, superiority stance cannot consider the trauma inflicted on so many, the sewing of hate, and the deep split between societies worldwide. This is the history that will live in their descendants They will carry such lasting traumatic consequences for time to come. It will burden innocent Palestinians for the rest of their lives.
“Are your parents in the photographs”? A young woman asks me as we look at a wall of pictures documenting scenes from German atrocities against Jewish people.
For several years, once a month I spoke at the Cape Town Holocaust Foundation. The foundation’s educational director had created awareness-raising workshops on the destructive consequences of stereotyping and demonizing others in Nazi Germany and here during Apartheid in South Africa. .
Groups of high school learners, teachers, social workers, and university students participated in personal story-sharing, role-playing exercises, and a guided walk through the Holocaust Museum. These groups reflect the diversity of ethnicity and faith present in South Africa.
Regularly, attendees heard testimonials from Holocaust survivors. It was humbling to then follow with my experience as a descendant of Nazi Germany. I start with: “Yes, my parents were Nazis and enthusiastically participated in the unfolding genocide”. As I speak about my struggle with this heritage I show family photos, my parents in uniform, and being in love; then film scenes of annihilation which I had researched and in which my father participated. Often, I joined during the museum tour and answered questions. “My parents could be any German you see in these pictures”, I say.
With a heavy heart, I point to a scene where men in brown uniforms use wooden clubs to viciously beat several people. The victims of this brutal assault wore yellow stars on their chests. They had sunken to the ground, bleeding, some pleading. Bystanders formed a circle around, deliberately witnessing this brutal killing; some with blank stares and others cheering on the murderers.
This is my history. I can acknowledge trans-generational traumatizing memory as a descendant of perpetrator cultures. With help from Jewish and black moral leaders and friends here, I found the courage to investigate the victim–aggressor dance in myself. I openly speak about shame, anger; and especially the inner–outer split-off. such as selective empathy (Mays Imad), and moral blindsiding of the self in the collective (cultural) context.
Feeling deep sadness: I say:” My parents, how could they’? They were, at least for a short while, loving parents to us. And then I discovered their destructive aspects as enforcers of an evil genocidal campaign. .
I encountered this splitting off again when I moved to SA, into the heart of Apartheid. Both my societies were in deep denial, ‘wilful ignorance’ (Achille Mbembe). A tragic dissociation of the personal seeking love and belonging in closed communities of ‘likeminded folks’ and instantly able to switch into ‘the outer socially conforming persona’; complicit in and enforcing dehumanizing ideology. I had to face my own fragmentation. I know, today that fear, jealousy, and anger exist in me and easily turn me into an aggressor, hurting others even in little ways. And how equally easy it is to switch to feeling like a victim. pointing to the acts of others that feel hurtful, like someone is out to do something to me. And what a relief it can be to judge others as good or bad as a way of controlling and securing my moral high ground.
Looking honestly and owning all aspects of myself, speaking openly to that in dialog meetings has been the path towards accepting and making peace with history in myself. This is my journey from shame to grace.
In my next essay, I write about the process of integrating split-off aspects. An honest, intentional opening towards acceptance and the ability to grieve and forgive self and others. This has given me courage to witness the unbearable, painful suffering of Palestinians. And to speak my truth, ‘no, not in my name’, to Israeli savage killers. You were the recipient of that hate, extermination by my family, Nazis; and now you have become them – vicious and inhumane. After each dialog session, I end with: “We need to talk, let us be in dialogue with each other about our history, and build bridges across the personal and collective divide.
Beyond enlightenment and educational degrees, we need to open our hearts, talk about our feelings, all of them, sharing vulnerability and work through shame barriers. Together we can touch the strands of our inherent human beauty.