I hope you understand the import of this reply:
I live in a small village in Israel, every single village and town has a reminder of those killed in all of Israel's wars, WWII and WWI. Some have tributes to Germans (from WWI), Turks, British, French, Australians, New Zealanders and others.
Germany (and the allies) lost generations of young men in both wars but we must leave behind, the modern concept of parity where everything is relative and equal such as the suffering was equal on all sides or Germany (or Imperial Japan) as they were “victims” too.
True, these were massive tragedies BUT...
There were aggressors and defenders. Who initiated the onslaught and who paid the price. Those that brought these horrible events to the rest of us should not celebrate anything but quietly remember the dead but not forget the why and how.
Those that “won” the hard fought battles can indeed celebrate though modestly that they saved the world from Austro-Hungarian Imperialism and then Nazi Fascist world slavery.
There were clear winners and losers. We do not celebrate killing others, we do however, celebrate halting them.
I share with you a firm resolve to reject relativism. The fact that the Germans sustained massive casualties in World War II does not somehow compensate for their war guilt. It is possible to say that the Germans were guilty and the Poles were not, for example. It is certainly possible to say that the Jews were innocent victims of a grotesque ideology.
It is certainly proper to analyze the causes of these conflicts. But it is not proper to vest the sins of the father onto the son. If there is residual anti-Semitism here in Germany, and I believe there is, much of it comes from the younger Germans who resent paying "reparations" to Israel or to Jews-I'm not saying whether they do or not, I am merely commenting on the perception which certainly exists.
If one can say that the bungled peace of 1918 led to the Holocaust, one can also say that the occupation of Germany post-1945 has been a great success because it produced one of the great democratic, prosperous nations of the world.
If I were a Jew in Israel, I would agree that we should never forget, I agree with that and I am not a Jew in Israel. But I also think that as we celebrate halting mass murderers, we should also celebrate their rehabilitation.
