I went to Berlin just a few days ago, it was quite the experience..
I did everything I had time for. Unfortunatly that did not include going up to the glass dome in the Reichtstag so I could look over the great city expanse.
Forgive me if my spelling is a bit quirky. Unfortunatly learning another language really has taken it's toll on the ability to spell my own.
Germany has been a learning experience, like any college kid that goes abroad I have learned much of another cluture and so forth.. But I honestly can say that quite a bit here that I have seen has honestly broken my heart in more ways than I really have ever felt before.
I went to the great and all beautiful Museum Island, and throughout the wing of the Old Museum (Altes Museum auf Deutsch), there were Egyptian reliefs that had been in perfect condition, but after the intense bombings of WWII by the Allies they were almost completely destroyed.
Priceless artwork that gives us insight into the world of an Ancient culture, nearly destroyed by war. I even have pictures of these beautiful pieces of plaster that still bear the burn marks from the bombs.
Kind of makes you think.. What about the lives lost and the country's faith and pride that was completely abolished?
Destruction of human values in favor of others, the pain the suffering.. I have never felt so much agony over the values I was raised with until I came here. I have felt pain over the ignorance that exists in our country.. Thats a given for any that endeavours to bridge the gap of American culture to universal undestanding and empathy. But god, living with these people and seeing their country's heritage almost completely destroyed and the ultimate effects it still has on their very personalities today.. it just breaks my heart.
posted by Nogias at 6:54 AM
6 Comments:
Yeah I've thought about that too. The way American's thinks about war but its always from a far off place. Granted it hurts when loved ones go but the image we have of war is has nothing to do with our home, towns, or cities
Careful about indicting a whole country (or about praising one for that matter). I thought I taught you better than that. With respect to Americans' ignorance of war's consequences, you should read Maxine Kingston's The Fifth Book of Peace in which she takes the burning of her home to the ground as a way to understand the devastation of war up close, given that otherwise it is kinda hard for us to know.
um.. who else am I going to indicate? The Allies were the ones that dropped the bombs and our country is one amongst many that remains drunk on war. Who else's values do you think my father raised me on while watching all of those War films?
In reference to our culture's obsession with war and particularly that war look up "St. Nikolai's Kirche in Hamburg". It is the most haunting place I have ever been in my entire life. I know what you mean about not knowing what the devestation of war is like up close.. We are so far away from it, even their news format is completely different from ours.
Excuse my generalizations, but Germany in general has learned a lot more from war, than the U.S., and it shows. The U.S. may learn, but it will probably take some kind of devastion like Germany has gone through.
It is generalized, but to an extent that is exactly what I was trying to convey.
We romantized video games, movies, everything about this war.. And these people are still living with the effects of massive devestation. In general the only people I have met that romanticize the great wars are people that were no where near the action and have never truly seen the destruction. Like.. The veterans that stood on the sidelines as supply lines, or never participated in the action or the clean-up. Or the people raised by those people a.k.a my own father.
we have.. I meant.
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