Friday, October 11, 2013

   An Eye for an Eye, A German for a Jew
             
               
                                          Expelled Germans from Sudetenland.

Norman M. Naimark in his book “Fires of Hatred” talks about the concept of the term ‘ethnic cleansing’ and how it has applied to major historical events, all of which were motivated by race. Ethnic cleansing, for those who are unfamiliar with the term, is the process of ridding a nation of a targeted group of people, under the impetus of racial background. One historical event I recently learned about that perpetuated ethnic cleansing shocked me because of its method in relation to events preceding it. This event was the Polish and Czechoslovak ‘revenge on Germany’ affair. It was not event post World War II yet when the Poles and the Czechs made the decision to broadcast their disgust with the Nazi encampment, torture, and attempted extermination of the Jewish race. Granted, who can blame them for taking a stand against a tumultuous dictatorship such as the one dominated by Adolf Hitler. Yet, it was both their method of operation and targets that made their actions completely counterproductive. As we know, it was not every single German who had a hand in exterminating the Jewish population, but the political tyrants under the Nazi party that spread the disdain for Jews to desensitize the public from their murder. However, it was nearly 3 million German residents of Sudetenland and parts of Poland who reaped the reparations of the Polish and Czech governments-in-exile.
So why all of this headache of torture, deportation, and ethnic cleansing of the Deutsche people? For the sake of the Jews? Naimark believes that the Poles and Czechs used the mask of WWII to settle a debt they had with Germany. I personally believe that they wanted to be the villain and the hero, in a sense, to promote their own nationalism. I don’t think it had much to do with their pity on the Jewish race. I would question where their open arms were when Hitler tried to sell the Jews out of Germany.
For me, this topic hit an interesting spot. I am African American, and my great-great-great-great grandfather was a half Black, half German freed slave. This would explain the surname Gross, from the Deutsch word ‘GroB’, meaning ‘big’ or ‘tall’. The question of whether my great to the fourth grandfather’s slave owners were of purely German or Jewish-German decent requires further investigation. Yet the large possibility that they were German-Jews puzzles me. How can a people who have endured or even witnessed such hatred and brutalization all in the name of race, do the same to another? If given the resources and opportunity, would the Irish, Native Americans, or even my race do such a thing? I would argue it doubtful but perhaps someone asked the same question prior to the ethnic cleansing of the German people post WWII. Perhaps it should be questioned why this cycle of hatred keeps revolving and evolving and into different forms as each generation passes.
Referencing back to the Poles and Czechs, the Germans under siege were degraded to a degree that the Jews were, such as by having to walk on all fours, being subjected to starvation, as well as humiliation by being singled out and berated for their race. Perhaps we do this in a more subtle and less literal way today to those we deem ‘too different’ or ‘unworthy’ of American nationalism.


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