Saturday, 27. August 2005, 21:56:13
ww2, politics, music
I happened to stumble upon
this small website. It is one of those websites that exhibit the terrible habit of
automatically playing music and do not show an easy way of stopping it, but because it plays delightful
klezmer, I am personally prepared to forgive the blunder in this particular case.
There is a
welcome and we are told
why this site is important. We can also read about
the problem with white pride.
I especially like this little tidbit:
I think you need a certain amount of shame to make pride real. Otherwise it becomes fake.I am one of those tall, blond, blue-eyed, Aryan
Übermenschen for whose "benefit" the Nazi atrocities were commited. I feel no blame or shame for those crimes in which I have no part, but I am familiar with the feeling of shame
for my own sins, so I believe that what pride I have has been tested.
And I am a proud person with a pride that also includes my cultural background, but I am certainly not foolish enough to dismiss other cultures as per se inferior.
The klezmer music on this website shows any really musical person that Jewish culture by no means can be considered to be inferior to Germanic culture.
Walk in beauty.
Troels.
Friday, 5. August 2005, 20:23:33
psychology, ww2
Possibly the most beautiful story about forgiveness that I have ever heard or read was about one of those American soldiers who took part in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Afterwards he was racked by feelings of guilt. Some of his surviving victims somehow got to hear about this and they wrote to him and told him that they forgave him.
I don't remember the story very well and I may have gotten it somehow wrong, but I believe that the essence is correct. And I find a strange beauty in the story about victims of atomic bombings who somehow found the moral strength to have genuine compassion with the spiritual sufferings of one of those men who brought disaster on them.
May their light keep shining.
Friday, 5. August 2005, 19:51:40
ww2, music, death
While I am writng it is approximately sixty years ago that the USA
dropped atomic bombs on
Hiroshima (6th August) and
Nagasaki (9th August). At least 120,000 people were killed immediately by the two bombs and many more died afterwards from their injuries.
Krzysztof Penderecki in 1959-1960 composed his
Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima, one of the great musical monuments of sorrow and pain. I heard it some years later. It is many years ago that I last heard it, but I still remember the impression it made on me. I will not recommend hearing it unless you really are prepared to take part in that pain. It really is a
threnody.
To the dead ones:
Rest in peace.
To the still surviving:
Walk in beauty.
Troels.
Wednesday, 4. May 2005, 18:31:08
ww2
Of all countries that one way or another took part in World War II Denmark possibly suffered the least. Only a few hundred deads and casualties and very limited material destructions. And in more general terms the Danes are one of those nations that through history have only to a modest degree been victims of oppression.
But our history has indeed taught us like other nations that political freedom is not a matter of course and the German occupation of Denmark during World War II was one of our strongest lessons. No wonder then that the liberation in early May 1945 is one of the defining moments in Danish self-perception.
On 4 May 1945 at 20.30 local summer time people in Denmark were as usually listening (illegally) to the radio broadcasts in Danish from BBC. 6 minutes into the broadcasting a journalist came into the radio studio with a message to his colleague and there was a short pause. Then the broadcast began again and the Danes heard those words that were to be some of the most famous that any Danish radio journalist has ever spoken:
I dette øjeblik meddeles det, at Montgomery har oplyst, at de tyske tropper i Holland, Nordvesttyskland og Danmark har overgivet sig.In this moment we are informed that Montgomery has stated that the German troops in the Netherlands, north western Germany and Denmark have surrendered.And then the candles were lit in the Danish windows that for five years had been blacked out. Every year since then the custom of lighting those candles in the windows has been held alive on the evening of 4 May.
There is a lit candle in my window right now.
(Candle: ©
Maryann Sterling)
Wednesday, 4. May 2005, 16:45:48
ww2
A few minutes ago it was 60 years ago that the German troops in the Netherlands, north western Germany and Denmark surrendered in Montgomery's headquarter at Lüneburger Heide. A couple of hours later the news would be broadcast by the BBC.
Monday, 2. May 2005, 22:52:01
ww2
Since 1945 it has been a custom here in Denmark that on the eve of 4 May we put lit candles in the windows. This custom derives from the fact that from 9 April 1940 Denmark was occupied by Nazi Germany and they forced blackout on the country.
On the 4 May 1945 at 20:36 local time it was announced unofficially that the German troops in the Netherlands, north western Germany and Denmark had surrendered. People in Denmark spontaneously destroyed their blackout curtains and put candles in their windows.
The custom is not very common any more, but it still survives.
(20%)
