Deutsch-Weissrussische Annäherung / Немецко-Белорусское Сближение
German-Belarusian Approach

Author(s): Alfred Kollmansperger
Subject(s): WW II and following years (1940 - 1949), Politics of History/Memory
Published by: CEEOL Collections / Digital Reproductions
Keywords: memorization of WW II;
Summary/Abstract: Let us learn by remembering a past of which “we old people” (and I am one of them) were a part, and today - as survivors - can still be viewed and felt like a material display in a “museum of the great war”... Who would not have stood in front of such a silent witness of that time - a cannon, a captured enemy bayonet perhaps, or the ID card of a fallen soldier, and felt the depressing inkling of a meaning that could no longer be found, the dark air of suffering and death? Now, we survivors are not “witnesses” to that past, we are not simply uninvolved observers of events that have passed away; We were actors, we were the producers of that reality, the consequences of which extend to all of us today, which weigh on our souls and often enough hurt our bodies, a past reality that therefore cannot be removed from the world by forgetting; We are not silent either. Unlike the lifeless museum exhibits, we can answer questions that are asked of us. What's more, it is our duty to answer them because we don't have much time left. And we will do it, and we will tell the truth, because only the truth and remembering gives our existence meaning and value for the future.

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