To the editor:
It was not surprising to hear the lament of Elie Wiesel concerning the lack of debate over the prospect of Germany’s reunification. The lightspeed pace earmarking the transformation of politics and governments in Eastern Europe has left many scrambling to assess the impact of such rapid change. Predictably the initial euphoria is slowly being replaced by cautious if not outright anxiety in some quarters.
To be freed of the yoke of communism’s one party system, to explore the possibilities of democracy and for the first time to enjoy freedom of expression has rekindled a hope in the human spirit thought to be irretrievably dormant. However, as we have so painfully learned, being a democracy alone does not insure the protection of human rights.
Although Mr. Wiesel was soundly reproached for his suggestion of a debate concerning German reunification, Wiesel himself explains as a Holocaust victim, “I have to live with my memories.” Indeed, in the absence of memory and the interpretation those memories provide, history be¬comes nothing more that a dry chronology of dates and events long past.
Perhaps more than the debate, which would presumably lead to some alternative to reunification, I sensed that Wiesel was really asking for a dialogue covering the circumstances that led to “his memory” of the Holocaust and was seeking some solace that reliving the memory would buttress against reliving the incident.
Poland, at least, shares Wiesel’s concerns. Assailing West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl’s failure to confirm the Oder-Neisse line as a permanent border, Poles have called for continued troop deployment along the area of potential dispute with Germany. East Germany’s Prime Minister Hans Modrow fuels Wiesel’s skepticism further by indicating a concern over West German right-wing political extremists, for in fact neo-Nazism has surfaced from time to time in the past 30 years in the U.S. and Ger¬many and will undoubtedly rear its ugly head again as forces jockey for power during the reunification process.
How frail our best laid plans, as the ghosts of Alsace-Lorraine, the Sudetenland and Dachau loom ominously in the not too distant past. That we should be preoccupied with a Europe dominated by Germany is predictable, especially in light of the excessive inhumanity provoked by the Nazi regime. In the broader scope of history, however Germany’s European hegemony, although twice attempted in this century, was distinguished more by its brutality than its longevity, barely surviving a decade under Nazi rule.
Germans, however, bristle understand¬ably at the implication they cannot be trust¬ed and rightly point out that they have shown themselves to be a valued friend to the. West, steeped in democracy, ever conscious of the Nazi atrocities and have acknowledged and memorialized the horrors perpetrated by Germany under Hitler. As a nation, however, Germany recognizes for it¬self the right to attend to its own internal affairs.
What then would satisfy the Elie Wiesels who wince at the spector of reunification without dialogue as the foreshadowing of a lapsed memory? Should not the cry “never again,” as a clarion against the barbarism of the Holocaust, stand not solely as a re¬minder of the atrocities of The Third Reich, but to prompt contrition from all nations from all nations who in their history have demonstrated a lapsed conscience and pomposity which has led to the trampling of human rights? Why then should Germany alone be singled out to memorialize the horrors of its recent history? Do we not all have a few skeletons to rattle our closet? Could we not all benefit from some introspection, self-scrutiny, humility and truth?
We give justifiable recognition to those memories which bring glory to ourselves as a civilization, however, what greater testament to our civilization can we give than to acknowledge our acts of inhumanity, greed or injustice. It is this confession of our frail¬ties that makes us a nation of conscience and honor. If one were to expect a reunified Ger¬many to commemorate Kristalnact as the beginning of the Holocaust, should not each nation of conscience designate a day of national introspection and humility? History certainly provides ample circumstance to in¬dict any superpower as culpable in the reprehensible. Could we not ponder our near genocide of the American Indian, or more recently our incarceration of the Japanese-Americans in the U.S. during World War II? Would not the Japanese find reflective substance in the Bataan Death March not to mention Pearl Harbor, while the Russians have their Stalin and the pogroms and the French and British their slave trade?
Acknowledging to ourselves, for the world to see, who we are and from whence we came is the true measure of what we may yet become. A day of reflection may spare us a day of reckoning.
Albert J. Repicci
GREENWICH