Nobody wants to heap guilt upon generation after generation of German volk but it is a human tendency to deny and forget the past with time.
For the average German, under 60 there is no recollection of it and it happened a long time ago.
For the Jewish people, 1933-1945 is yesterday.
For a German, it happened eons ago.
As an ancient people that has seen it all before, we have a long memory and things like WWII do not fade. We are here, Nazi Germany is gone, we survive anything and everything thrown against us. Memory is key.
You stated:”It is possible to say that the Germans were guilty and the Poles were not, for example”.
The Poles and most Europeans were guilty as well. The Austrians (Anschluss) Hungarians, French, Croats and all other Europeans freely (and happily I might add) handed over their Jewish brethren to the Germans or the Fascist equivalent power in each land, so did the Church.
The guilt is European, not just German but Germany will have to carry this burden for a long time.
You stated, “But it is not proper to vest the sins of the father onto the son”.
Germany, as a nation bears this sin. Of course, if you're born after 1945 you are not part of the crime individually, but collectively your people, in your nation, with your ideology and more importantly, with your culture/mindset perpetrated crimes that no other nation (though the USSR is damn close) had ever done, up to that point in history.
If Antisemitism exists in Germany and Europe, and, as you say, it is the result of Germany STILL having to pay all the victims then, what does that cyclical argument say about the Germans? If they are Antisemitic because they have to pay “those money grubbing Jews”, then they have learned very little. By thinking this way, you blame the victim for being the victim and you vent your anger on the one that suffered. Hate the Jew for being the Jew that you killed?
I understand the logic of your argument and understand the sentiment of the Germans who are “sick and tired” of those payments but what price can compensate for the loss of 1.5 million Jewish children? Do yo have any idea what that means for a small people like the Jews?
I am not getting out my violin to play a sad song to make you feel guilty here but what I am trying to convey to you is what a devastating effect this has on the Jewish people to this very day, right now. I do not think people understand or appreciate the impact of the loss of 1.5 million children, forget about the other 4.5 million souls, I am thinking about the kids.
Germany will have to pay some kind of compensation for years to come until the people of that era pass from this world and that is fast approaching. Then, Germany will have paid out her funds. In Israel, in the late 1950’s there was a huge argument about even accepting reparation funds (called “blood money”), in the end, the young, struggling country decided to take the funds to help boost her fledgling economy.
You stated, “If one can say that the bungled peace of 1918 led to the Holocaust...”
I do not think there is a direct correlation. A “bungled peace” led to WWI part 2 but the Holocaust is something special, something outside of post-WWI grievances,something very special in it's evil, that only the Germans designed.
It comes deep from the depths of the German soul, not the Pole, not the Japanese nor Italian, it is uniquely German and that is something the Germans must think about and analyze for generations, should they chose to do so.
The bottom line, is that we Jews, especially in Israel, celebrate LIFE. Unlike the Muslims (who allied themselves with the Axis powers in WWII) of this region, who celebrate death, WE choose life.
We recognize that Germany has made amazing strides, has educated itself, have created an amazing, prosperous country out of the ashes of WWII.
We celebrate the modern Germany and they are our closest ally in Europe so we recognize and celebrate the rehabilitation and unification of your country.
We do not forget however, that 70 years ago, it was a capital offense to be a Jew in Europe and that the ashes of millions of my people are still scattered all over the continent.
Thank you for a dispassionate but thoughtful reply.
Let me begin by correcting my statement which no doubt leads to a misapprehension which I sensed the minute I saw it published on the screen. My observation, "It is possible to say that the Germans were guilty and the Poles were not, for example,” was meant to apply to war guilt rather than to a history of anti-Semitism, of which the polls are certainly "guilty"just as were the Russians, as you noted.
I am not sure that it is only the Germans who would have effected the Holocaust. It is clear that a quarter-century earlier the Turks explored the possibilities and a couple of decades earlier the Soviets were pretty brutal to the kulaks. We have had tens of millions murdered in China and the Vietnamese were brutal after they swept over the South. The killing fields of Cambodia reflect a kind of blind murderous outburst which killed about one third of its people. I am reminded of Churchill's wartime speech which I do not quote exactly but was to the effect that if the Nazis prevailed the world would descend into a new dark age made more terrible by the lights of perverted science. I don't know how much of the Holocaust was the product of the German soul, of 20th century technology and science, or the fanaticism of Hitler and his henchmen. I suspect it was some combination of all three.
Incidentally, for the record I am not German I'm merely live in Germany.
Let me conflate two matters. First, my comment that, "it is not proper to vest the sins of the father onto the son" and your observation that, "Germany, as a nation bears this sin." I know you have tried to square the circle but the two concepts are fundamentally incompatible-at least once the guilty generation has died off. It seems to me that for a German to bear any guilt for the Holocaust he must've arrived at least at the age of puberty by the beginning of the war, 1939. That would make these people nearly 80 years old today. More than 90% of the population feels that they are not personally guilty for the crimes of their fathers.
At some point these Germans have a legitimate complaint about paying reparations and you quite rightly note that time is drawing near. Incidentally, I do not assert that this is the exclusive cause of German anti-Semitism which I believe exists, I think it is a point which is seized upon. But as an American, I question whether United States foreign policy concerning Israel should be dictated by the historical reality of what Germans did to Jews? I have not argued this case much since Obama came into office because I believe he has sold out to the Muslim Brotherhood and this and/or his Marxist background make him an enemy of Israel. I do not want to associate myself with those motives.
If we insist that "Germany as a nation bears this sin" do we not leave ourselves intellectually defenseless to saying that Jews as a group bear responsibility for the advance of communism? If we are going to draw these conclusions, these invidious distinctions based on race or ethnicity, where does logic make us stop? May I say that stereotypes which you use in irony such as, "those money grubbing Jews” become legitimate debating points? At what point do we become what we abhor?
