Remembrance of things past....

I read another article today – as usual, in the IHT – about the new memorial at the site of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. I was about to say the ‘infamous Bergen-Belsen concentration camp’, but in this case, I think no adjective is necessary or could ever truly describe a place such as this.

It’s been a year since I was in Berlin. There was no real purpose to the trip other than it was a city to which I had never visited, I had managed to get a couple days off work, and the airfare was relatively cheap (as was the hotel in which I stayed).

While there, I was continually struck by the lengths to which Germany seems to go in order to ensure that this nation will never forget this terrible past. There still seems to be a kind of national collective guilt and the country is doing all it can to remind its citizens - and the world – that it not only acknowledges the sins of the recent past, but is determined teach the younger generations what happened under their fathers’ and grandfather’s watch.

In Berlin itself, the Neue Wache is a solemn place, and sits in quiet testament to all those who have lost their lives due to oppression. There is Daniel Liebeskind’s relatively new Jewish Museum. Not far from the Brandenburg Gate lies the controversial Holocaust Memorial. I say ‘controversial’ primarily because some feel it doesn’t convey a true sense of being a memorial to the six million – perhaps it’s a bit too ‘artsy’ – but it is there.

The Neue Synagogue is carefully maintained, and under continuous patrol by the Polizei. Children are taught in school about the era of National Socialism. While I was there, I was twice approached by young Germans who noticed me visiting these sites and asked me to remind my friends back in America that what happened in the past was from a different generation. In the Deutsches Historisches Museum, the years from 1933 – 1945 are fully exposed for all to see and nothing has been swept under the revisionist rug. In the south, not far from Munich, the camp at Dachau has been preserved and is carefully maintained.

Racism and xenophobia will never be completely erased from any nation’s consciousness, but Germany is one country that is determined to move forward, while always remembering to look back too.

Seven Years

It was seven years ago - Jan 1, 2002 - that the European Union welcomed the Euro as the official currency of its member nations (although there are still a few EU countries that have not yet adopted it).

It was a huge event then - of course - but even now, with the benefit if hindsight, I still think that this has to be among the top five biggest economic events of the past 100 years.

In order to adopt the Euro, these countries had to look beyond whatever cultural, historical, or even sentimental bonds they may have had with their former currencies. Moreover, the adoption of the Euro tended to force these nations to really begin seeing themselves as part of a larger union itself. Some critics have even called the EU (somewhat derisively, I suspect), the "United States of Europe". Perhaps it is a certain reluctance to join the others and run with the herd is what has kept the UK, Denmark and Sweden from adopting this currency in spite of being among the original EU members. Today, January 1, 2008, Slovakia becomes the latest country to join the Eurozone and adopt the Euro as its native currency.

Guten Rutsch ! Happy New Year !

Since I'm not able to hit the road as often as I'd like, I do most of my travelling in the virtual way by reading articles and stories from other nations and capitals. Today I came across this story in the IHT (again).

After my trip last January (hard to believe it was almost a whole year ago), I sure wish I could have been there to see it this year. I can just picture the scene by the Brandenburg Gate ....

Maybe next year...