Power

First, “Wow!” Beautiful commentary. Again, there is a great calling for you. What it is exactly, I don’t know, but I know that whatever it is, you will be one of the best at it. Second, I want to remind you that my mom and her family were and are Jews, so this makes me and my history, in part, Jewish. My father, on the other hand, was as German as anyone could possibly be—he was pure German through and through—in mindset and blood. So does this make me, in part, German also? Am I half German and half something else?

My dad came from Nuremberg, Germany— Nuremberg is said to be the second largest city in the state of Bavaria—Munich being the largest city. My mom was born in Fürth Germany— Fürth is a much smaller city in the same state of Bavaria.

My dad was raised a Catholic-German. My mom was raised Jewish-German. So would that make them both, my mom and dad, Germans?

My dad was born somewhere in 1916 or 1917. My mom was born on September 1927. The exact dates could be different—I don’t have much biographical information about either one of my parents—especial of any vital information.

What I do know is that both my parents lived on very separate political lines. My father, during the Second World War, may have been drafted into the military instead of simply enlisting—of this, I don’t know for sure—I understand that maybe his family were “peasants”, so it is a good possibility that he had been drafted and had not volunteered.

My mom was born Jewish in a time and place where Jews had not been treated or accepted as humans. The few stories that I could get from my mom—she was reluctant to talk about it much—were stories that only angered me against my father’s land and people. So maybe this is why my mom hadn’t liked telling me much about that history in her life. As did many Jews at that time, my mom and some of her cousins and maybe two aunts and three uncles—her parents had been killed—no, murdered—had fled to other countries. My mom and her group had gone to Norway. Why?

I am sure that everyone thought that they would be safe in Norway—it was supposed to have been a “neutral” country.

As it turned out, Norway hadn’t been such a safe place for Jews. Now I know that this is all history, and would probably be best if let alone to die an ignominious death. But I am telling you all this only so that you may better see who I am, and maybe why I think and say some of the things I do.

So with this in mind—my not wanting to relive or to cause anyone else to relive so much bitter detail—I will try to be as brief as I can—leaving out some of the politics and maybe any unintended attempt to hold anyone liable.

My mom had ended up in a prison camp—Grini—in Norway. Many refer to this place as a concentration camp—I say, “Prison”.

There, at this "concentration camp, my parents met. My dad was a German guard posted there at the “prison”. My father had found favor in my mom, as did my mom for him. I was shortly to follow. I was born February 28, 1945 in Norway…

I will, at this time, fast forward to a time where I, with my mother, was living in China. Still leaping further into my future, after having spent 14 years in China—two of which had been in a Jewish refugee camp—I went in search of my father—who, when I was two-years-old, had left my mother and me to return to Germany. This, of course, had been maybe two years after the war had ended—sometime in 1947 or ‘48—the war having “officially ended in May 1945. The reason that my father had returned to Germany—as per my mother—was to make reconciliation with his family.

Only having a few names (names of family and places) to look for, I had had a difficult time searching for even the slightest information about my father and his family. Also, while in China, my mother had restricted my speaking German—instead, she had me attend a small home-taught class where some Christian lady and her husband (¿?) had tried to teach me and the other kids English. My mother, whenever she spoke to people (her sisters and brothers mostly), had always spoken in Yiddish. My point is that I didn’t speak German as well as maybe would have been considered educative—my communication skill was a mixture of German, English, Chinese, and Yiddish—I am sure that I wasn’t well understood or well perceived by anyone in Germany while out asking for information about my father.

Once I had finally found some family members of my father there in Germany, they treated me like I was dirt or a street dog (so it had seemed to me)—they didn’t want anything to do with me. I never did learn the whereabouts of my father, or if he had even made it back to Germany when he had left my mom and me there in China.

As for the current political position of your country, the current administration really doesn’t have the power to make “real” changes—even if it wanted to—this to me is one great problem of a so-called Federal-Constitutional republic—individuals such as a president really don’t have much political power—not really.

One problem that your country has is a world-wide, negative perception. I mean, it used to be that people from your country could enter Canada without a visa—now you must have one. Why, and why no for some other "questionable" countries?

I believe that a lot of misconceptions come from poor communication—therefore, poor representation. My wife always believed that with better abilities to communicate on a universal level that your country and the people would have better world-wide opportunities because of their ability to communicate and to represent themselves on the same level as everyone else—everyone else with power—at this time, that power is English.

It must be known that I have no ill feelings towards any people, country, or political agendas or powers. I prefer love and peace—as do most humans. As I have stated before, I consider myself human before I consider myself a part of any political organization, religious thought or Cree, or of any nationality. I prefer that the world wasn’t separated by walls, boundaries, and or borders of any kind—religious, race, countries, political thought, sex, etc. But I also understand and respect the preferences of others. I stand by the idea that all people should be allowed to live their lives according to the dictates of their own conscious—as long as that allowance or freedom doesn’t interfere with the rights of others. So yes, we all must live within the limits of freedom. YES, with freedom comes great responsibility and restraint—those being the understanding that freedom has to have limits or controls for it to exist.