CHRISTINE KRUIZENGA, 57
My first interviewee is Christine, the aunt of my friend Lena. She is 57 years old, married and works in Hamburg as a lifestyle writer. She was born in a town called Sohren, not too far away from the US military base. Her childhood began just 14 years after the war. That brevity of time meant the community was still grieving for lost loved ones, still watching their words in fear and registering the shock of normalcy. When Christine was born, Germany was weary and ready for peace. She grew up looking at the Americans as heroes, the people that ended the war and that are getting Germans back into shape by renting their apartments and shopping in their shops.
I wanted to know what the older people felt about living side by side with the people they were recently fighting against. Before this interview, I hadn’t known that many German soldiers also saw the Americans as saviours, and were happy that it was them that freed them and not the Russians. These remarks give insight into the political geography that hardened into the Cold War. I can’t help wondering to what extent these tense geopolitical currents run through people’s memories, shaping the way they recollect their experiences.
I went into this conversation curious about the switching of ideological allegiance. I learnt that for many, that coincides with the turning point of loyalty, something that happens when people realize they are fighting a senseless battle. I got the sense that ideology is a crutch, a tool to embolden people in the face of threat. By the end of the war, everyone just wanted to go home and return to their old lives. There was no need to brandish any more ideological hate.
This conversation was an insight into the priorities of people who lived through that time. If I could do it again, I would choose to do it on the phone. I did it over whatsapp which made our questions and answers unsynchronized. Christine’s answers contained such important information, each could be a whole seminar on its own! It took effort not to bombard her with too many questions. There was a language barrier and in the interest of time, I kept my talking to a minimum. I was often worried that Christine would get tired. She trooped on though and this is what she shared with me.
(Copy and pasted from Whatsapp)
Kar-men:
Hi Christine!
Christine:
good morning 😉
Kar-men:
It is 4pm here! but good morning to you :) i am ready to begin whenever you are!
Christine:
Yes we can start i am ready
Kar-men:
OK great! First, could you tell me your name, age, and hometown please?
Christine:
christine kruizenga, 57, married (29 years), 3 children 28, 26, 23, i am living in hamburg/germany, born in a small town called sohren/hunsrück
Kar-men:
Do you have any siblings?
Christine:
Yes, i have two sisters and one brother, so: 4 children born during 4 years...
Kar-men:
Could you recall the first time you learnt about WWII as a child?
Christine:
i learned about ww2 from the beginning of my life, the war was over just 14 years ago - it was over but it was still everywhere, in the hearts and heads of all people around me.
Kar-men:
Did you learn about it in school first or at home?
Christine:
People at home did not speak about it in words, i think they could not. it was much too hard for them all, later, when i was older, i asked questions and they started to tell stories, what happened, always and only sad stories. about hunger, fear to be send to prison if you make a "wrong" joke, uncles, brothers that died as soldiers... like that.
In school we had History in class 7 where we "arrived" in 1933. i think in class 9 and from than on we learned about the years 1933-1945 until i left school in class 13 (abitur)
Kar-men:
Wow sounds like a mixture of sadness and fear
Christine:
Thats right: sadness, fear and very important: that should never ever happen again.
Kar-men:
I can’t imagine how hard it must have been for your family members who lost loved ones...and then have to reject a cause that their loved ones died fighting for.
Christine:
I remember, in my family we had some aunts that never married (they were not too sad about it). But once i asked my mother why there were so many aunts not married she told me: because there were not so much men, because of the war. that was impressing.
Kar-men:
That must really have impacted the community. Especially when they see men they know having to go to prison after the war.
Christine:
Important to mention: my hometown is located just 2 kilometer from Hahn. Hahn became after a while the largest NATO-airport of the US-army. So there were 2000 inhabitants and about 20000 americans (including their families) living in this area. we loved it, really. They were much different to the germans. So relaxed, so happy, we children wanted to be, yes, i think, we wanted to be a bit like them...
Kar-men:
Wow that's very interesting. When the children looked up to the NATO forces, how did your older relatives feel?
Christine:
when the children looked up to the american NATO forces i think it was no problem at all for the adult ones. we all did not see the americans as occupiers. we all felt that they freed us and protect us. btw: most people had americans in their flats as renters, americans bought in the shops and eat in the restaurants. after a while we had 8 restaurants in a little 2000 inhabitant town, so, the americans contributed a lot to the growing economy.
Kar-men:
That explains alot about why people saw them in a positive light-- their presence helped the economy, and made lives better. I would have imagined that it would be hard for older people to live among people who were once enemies. For those who really supported Hitler, they had to adapt to a new ideology, on top of losing loved ones at battle.
Christine:
Their presence helped the economy and: they brought a good, positive lifestyle with them. life could be easy, thats what the americans stood for. they had not felt the consequences of a totalitarian state.
They were all young: the future.
once i talked to a friend of mine and she got upset about nazi germany and how mostly all germans could support this cruel ideology. i thought a lot about that point... i am sure: it was fear, fear to be punished, fear to be send to prison and so on if you not do what this totalitarian state wants you to do.
Kar-men:
Did you have family members that lived through both the Weimar Republic before the war and the Nazi regime? Did they talk about what it was like to experience going through different regimes?
Christine:
my father was born in 1921. he took part in ww2 and he had to stay from 1945 to 1949 in russian prison. he started to talk about all this in the age of 80 years. but not about weimar. he was too young then. he was lucky, as he told us, and i believe, that he never had to shoot somebody. once he met (during the war) in the woods he was alone, a Russian soldier. Both were alone. They could not hide because it was a "kiefernwald", very light. He took his handkerchief and waved and the russian soldier did the same and both went away without any word. A white handkerchief.
Kar-men:
Wow, that is such a powerful moment. Did he ever talk about whether prison changed his mindset about the Holocaust and the Nazis?
Christine:
he was in war-prison in russia, horrible conditions for sure. but he always said, that russian people do have a good heart and even if they do not have anything they would give you something. he thought he never will come back to germany and if: everything will be destroyed there. so, he came back and the little town was ok... he was happy to live, he travelled a lot, he was happy about food and there was always fire in his open chimney, he never wanted to feel cold any more.
Christine:
I think it only changed his view on russians - he learned that they have a big heart, but as well: enough is enough, one should not exaggerate - from a certain point on russians could be very, very brutal.
Kar-men:
Im sure this probably was also an important factor in how he viewed all the Cold War tension which started soon after the war ended.
Christine:
thats right! he said, pay attention, if the russians get angry it could really lead to a new war - what nobody never ever in germany wants to happen.
Kar-men:
I'm very interested in how people could adapt to an entirely different philosophy after the war. I know the Allied forces created a psychological propaganda campaign to ensure that Germans took moral responsibility for the war. I wonder what it was like to go through that and reflect on everything you believe in. Did your family ever talk about that?
Christine:
As i lived in small town (next larger town was 80 km away) in the middle of nowhere, i am not sure if the anti-nazi-propaganda of the allies took place. People had no TV.
I think in my family people were against all this Nazi stuff/Hitler from the beginning - they did not fight against it actively, so they were no heroes in that sense. But btw my grandfather refused to enter the "partei" so he could not become a major what he wanted to be. My family is very down to earth. my father once said, that the biggest idiots (? expression fools?) of his hometown got the biggest positions (leader of the youth, leader of...) the fools saw their chance to be something.
Kar-men:
Ah ok. So not everyone strongly supported the Nazi ideology. Did your family have a strong opinion about Jewish people?
Christine:
When my father went to school he learned a lot of nazi ideology. he sometimes used words i could not accept. i asked him why he could say that, he said to me, he knows about it and he reflected it. but he learned it like indoctrination. For example he learned how a german should look. in school they had to go in front and the teacher measured them, watched the colour of the hair etc.
perhaps therefore it could happen sometimes, when we watched tv together, he said things like : this is a jew. you see it from the nose.
i got upset, as well as my sisters and my brother, we hated this. but i am sure my father never hated jews, it was just what he learned in school.
Kar-men:
Sometimes I have the same type of exchanges with my parents. We have a really different idea of what’s an appropriate way of talking about race!
Christine:
it's unbelievable but i never knew a jewish person by myself, i never thought about it. my son is in berlin, his flatmate was a jew. so i know him. and we travelled all together to israel last march to visit him. in my hometown there lived some jews until 1934 but fortunately they all escaped to the united states. i know one family that have chairs and a table from one of these families in their storage. the jewish family could not carry everything with them. the german family never heard about them but is paying attention on their furniture.
Kar-men:
I wonder if many germans also never met Jews during that time. And how this impacted the way they thought about them.
Christine:
when my parents or family talked about jews it was always a bit like a mystery...but i think there where not many jews in germany after 1945... am i wrong? i do not know. nowadays the community is growing in hamburg. it is important to know: for me it is not important whether somebody is a jew or.., it doesn't matter at all. i am happy to see that my children are feeling the same.
Kar-men:
How did you talk to your children about race and nationality when they were growing up? Do you think that has affected the way your family feels about the refugee crisis today?
Christine:
i just asked my son, his answer: yes mom, you taught us christian values of equality of every human. i am happy to hear that. but it seems to be like that. i knew, children can develop in one or in another direction and as a mother your influence is restricted. my hope was that they will never become right-winged people, or let’s say nazis. this fear started (not really fear, but worries) in 1995.
During my youth we fought not against nazis - there were none! we fought for a better environment, against cruise missiles and pershings, for women’s rights and for a liberal "regierung". nowadays there are more nazis. It has to do with the falling of the ddr (1989) and the german reunification.
In the former ddr they thought and were taught that only West Germany was responsible for the Holocaust. There was never an open discussion on that topic - as there was in West germany from 1960/1970.
So, after the reunification –and that meant democracy– people of the eastern part could use their freedom of speech. Unfortunately they did not have the same development as in the western part. That’s my opinion. So from the early 90s it started in germany with more nazis (or at least some).
If you learned, that everybody is created equal and has the same right to live a happy life and if you know how to feel with other people than you never will say that refugees are not welcome. i am sure that my children are openminded. they know as well, that europe, the united states and so on are all as well responsible for the difficult situation people in, for example Africa, live in. we are living all on one planet. borders are artificial. we could not close our eyes or close the borders.
Christine:
One day, Johannes aged 3, we went for the doctors. in the waiting room sat a young, black woman. i think it was the first black woman my son ever saw close to him. he went to her, looked at her, intensively. i was a bit worried: what is he going to say? there were a lot of people in the room, it was very, very quiet.
Suddenly he said full of admiration: ohhh, mama, schokolade!
Everybody smiled, the lady as well. i was happy.
Kar-men:
:D this last story made me smile. You really taught your children well and you must be so happy that they are open minded and have good values.
I took too much of your time now Christine. That is all my questions :) Is there anything else that you'd like to add?
Christine:
Interesting to hear that you think that americans has been the enemy to germany during ww2. I have never thought so and i think most germans did and do not think so. The usa freed us from hitler... really, that's what i heard from my parents, aunts and uncles. Perhaps they spoke only about the last year of ww2. When they sat all down in the cellar because of the bombs, their only wish was that finally the us-army would come (and not the russians) and save them. I think it’s the same with england and france, they freed us from the dictatorship and senseless killing.
Kar-men:
Do you think at the end of the war, most Germans felt that way, that they just wanted to be free from Hitler?
Christine:
For example, my father never was a nazi at all, he was taught in school to be one but he was none. So after the 3. reich he could be himself again. He loved to travel around the world and get in contact to all nations. There were for sure a lot of germans that were nazis, but as i mentioned, a lot of them because of fear and a lot of them because in "normal" times they had no chance to become a respected person. some ran thoughtlessly after the nazi flag as well and some believed their words - but not the majority and especially not what I experienced.
Kar-men:
This conversation showed me that there are many nuances we don't' learn in history class in school. So many more sides to the story. We never learnt what the German soldiers were fighting for at different points of the war. I just never gave much thought about whether it was mostly for what they believed in...I didn't know that so many were happy for the Allies to stop the war.
Christine:
i can understand that. but its the same for me: i am surprised.
i just helped my former aupair (from russia 😉) she is studying history - with a homework about the topic: why german soldiers stayed in the army even when they knew the war was lost. reasons we found out: some where really convinced, most feared to be punished and a lot of them did not want to leave their "kameraden" alone.
In world war 1 it was much different, lots of young men wanted to fight... world war 2: they had to fight. even the ones that wanted to fight had no illusions anymore after one or two years of being a soldier. Hitler started this war, there was no need to do that. Justfied with nothing.
When he was "elected" a lot of people knew that that meant war. They did not want him but could not do anything about it because he changed the law.
They searched for the end of the war. civilians as well in any case i know. (besides some really crazy and stupid nazis).
Germans like to travel, they want to have friends in all the world, pupils are forced to go to an exchange in a foreign country. i think and i hope that germany learned the lesson well!! when i was in cologne as i child i saw a lot of ruins, houses, churches... i mean if you saw that...
thank you kar-men for this brainstorming. you can ask me anytime!