Reminders of Aggression for Progress

As one walks through the streets of Berlin, the bullet holes marring the facades of buildings are unmistakable. The

Ruins of Anhalter Bahnhof Station

craters in the surfaces speak to the intensity of the battle waged to end Nazi terror nearly eighty years ago. The Germans could easily repair these walls. Yet leaving the bullet holes as a reminder of the past may be helping to repair something even more important: a democratic German society.

Ruins of Kaiser Wilhelm Church

This past semester, I learned that Germany has made great strides in addressing its violent, fascistic past. I didn’t fully understand this claim until spending a week in Berlin. Ruins of bombed out buildings and train stations occupy valuable real estate in the city, but their preservation reminds Berliners of the deadly consequences of Nazi aggression and total war.

Photo of Auschwitz Birkenau in the Reichstag Building

The Reichstag building, the seat of the German federal parliament, showed me Germany’s confrontation with its troubled past most clearly. Four photos from Auschwitz-Birkenau greet visitors to the right of the front doors. As Germany’s statesmen and -women enter their parliament building, they see the great injustices carried out in their country on the basis of legislation created and decisions made within their government. Those with Germany’s future in their hands are not allowed to ignore their country’s history of antisemitism, oppression, and hate.

Soviet Etchings in the Reichstag Building

Around a corner, one finds the original walls of the Reichstag exposed to show the writings of Soviet soldiers made when the building was captured in early May 1945. These etchings remind government representatives of the complex role of the Soviets as both liberators and occupiers in the decades after the war. Germany’s decision to leave the Soviet etchings and the bullet holes in the Reichstag’s facade symbolizes the nation’s decision not to cover up its past. The Germans preserve fragments of World War II and the subsequent Cold War throughout Berlin to remind those who gaze upon them of the atrocities once inflicted by and on the German people, and to encourage a different path for the future.

 

 

Threatened by Invasion Again

When considering this study abroad trip, I had concerns about visiting Poland with Russia’s war against Ukraine happening right next door. I worried about my safety, and I envisioned a tense atmosphere in Poland that would reflect my worries. However, this was far from the atmosphere that I experienced in Krakow. Most Poles continue about their normal daily lives — workers tend their shops, people eat at restaurants, and young people go out to bars late into the night. No shortages were apparent. The tourism business thrives despite the war a border away. Some Ukrainian flags adorn the outside of businesses, but, as with the Ukrainian flags hanging in the United States, I wondered if these shows of support corresponded to real contributions to Ukraine’s aid. While I didn’t get to observe it myself, singers did perform one night to collect aid for Ukraine. However, I was surprised there weren’t more demonstrations specifically against Russian aggression, especially considering Poland’s own history of being occupied by Eastern aggressors.

During our tour of the Krakow Museum in Schindler’s Factory, I reflected on the parallels between Poland’s current situation and the time just before the German invasion in 1939. Our Polish tour guide explained to us how Poles spent the summer of 1939 enjoying life rather than preparing for a war. While looking at the photos of Poles dancing and having picnics, I was reminded of Krakow today, where Poles continue about their daily lives seemingly uninterrupted. I hope that their lives remain uninterrupted by war.

Our tour guide also called the Slavic nations “last minute masters.” By this, she meant that the Poles can mobilize quickly to counter any threat. However, I don’t think “masters” is the right word here, because it implies that the Poles succeed in repelling their enemies without prior planning. The Poles were swiftly overrun by the Germans in 1939, so hearing the tour guide speak proudly about their “last minuteness” caught me off guard. I realize there are dangers in drawing conclusions about an entire nation from one city or one tour guide, but the Poles do not seem to have taken their defeat in 1939 as a lesson in the importance of preparation.

Paris’ Conflicting Stories of the French Resistance

In class and through my own research this semester, I’ve learned how Charles de Gaulle, the leader of the Free French during WWII, defined resistance to Nazi occupation only as military action carried out by men beneath his command. This narrow definition could be a result of his own status as a military man and a potential desire to recognize only those who were loyal to him in the wide range of resistance networks. His limited view of resistance excluded the significant contributions of most of those who resisted the occupation from the French public memory. The subtle and small day-to-day resistance efforts conducted by resistants throughout France were ignored. Since most French women resisted non-violently, very few of them received recognition in the decades after the war,  even though women comprised around 25% of active resistants.

De Gaulle’s definition of resistance as an affair for military men was extremely apparent in Paris’ Musée de L’Ordre de La Libération in Les Invalides. The Order of Liberation was created in November 1940 by De Gaulle to honor the fighters who made significant contributions to the liberation of France, and the museum recognizes them. Upon walking in, one is met with a wall of faces of De Gaulle’s Companions of Liberation. Only six are women, and nearly all the faces are white, even though black men from Senegal and North Africa comprised the bulk of De Gaulle’s army. It doesn’t make sense why France  continues to tell this narrow narrative of resistance in one of Paris’ most popular history museums. While Les Invalides is focused on the military side of France’s history, perpetuating De Gaulle’s military view of resistance without addressing the other avenues of resistance is a misrepresentative half-truth that continues to ignore the significant contributions of women and men of color.

Germaine Tillion and Genevieve de Gaulle-Anthonioz, the niece of Charles de Gaulle, are two significant women resistants excluded from the Musée de L’Ordre de La Libération. Only two miles away from Les Invalides, they are interred in the Pantheon, a monument constructed to honor the “great men” of France. These two women were moved to the Pantheon in 2015 as a result of a movement that began in the 1970s to recognize women for their unique contributions to the Resistance. Only six women have been interred in the Pantheon compared to the fifty-four Frenchmen honored there, so their recognition marked progress in the recognition of women resistants and the dissolution of France’s patriarchal structure. I had the privilege of visiting their graves and seeing how the women I’d spent months researching were properly honored. Yet I was shocked at their complete absence from the museum. How can two women important enough to enter into the extremely exclusive Pantheon be given no mention or even a separate exhibit in Paris’ museum to liberation? France’s selective telling of its resistance history in different spaces suggests that their memory of the Resistance may not have progressed as much as my research indicated, and that more work must be done to tell a cohesive history of French Resistance that doesn’t center solely on De Gaulle’s chosen white men.

Piecing Together the British National War Experience

While in the UK, I had the privilege of visiting the Churchill War Rooms, Bletchley Park, and the Imperial War Museum. Each museum was full of more information than I had time to fully absorb in a single visit, but all of them taught me a great deal about England’s collective memory and how it viewed its own national war experience.

The Churchill War Rooms centered heavily on the crucial role that Churchill and his staff played in defeating the Nazis. It was very reverent toward Churchill and highlighted the influence that his speeches had on the British people’s resolve. Proper attention was also dedicated to the typists and other staff who supported Churchill and dealt with poor living conditions below ground to keep the war effort moving. This museum exhibited how England and its people made whatever adjustments and sacrifices necessary to hold out against Germany, even if it meant moving below ground and working long hours. England’s collective memory devotes a great deal of space to Churchill and his significant contribution to the free world.

Bletchley Park also demonstrated how England’s national war experience consisted of people working hard and making sacrifices to secure victory. The staff at Bletchley, especially the women, worked long hours in difficult conditions to decrypt German communications. One can only imagine the noise level and smells in the Bombe huts.  More than 9000 workers, most of them women, operated in secrecy, strictly adhering to Bletchley’s regulations even in their personal lives.  Bletchley’s displays focus much more on the war experiences of women than the Churchill War Rooms, but they also describe the efforts of civilian mathematicians responsible for breaking the cyphers.

Finally, the Imperial War Museum focused on the experiences of other segments of the British population, including its troops, average citizens, and British expatriates in the Pacific. The museum had displays depicting the strict rationing that the English people had to endure, and how they adapted to carry on as the English do. This museum also gave space to the English civilians who were living throughout the empire, some of whom fell into Japanese hands. While detained, these men, women, and children suffered from starvation and sickness. This was new information to me. The comprehensive English war experience was felt well beyond the island’s borders. Its people were scattered across the globe, and while the European theater is most usually associated with England, it had a stake in the Pacific theater as well. The final displays in the exhibit presented the anti-colonial movements that gained momentum throughout the British Empire at the war’s end, especially in India. It seems contradictory that Britain fought the war to both protect its empire and defend human freedoms, when its imperialism denied independence to nearly 25% of the world’s population. I appreciated how the museum didn’t ignore Britain’s hypocrisy in this matter. The entire WWII section that we walked through had been newly added in recent years, suggesting that England is still working to ingrain its WWII experiences into the nation’s collective memory, especially the events in the Pacific theater. I found it very beneficial to visit all three of these museums as they each contributed a unique facet to my understanding of the English national war experience. I hope to revisit each of these places someday and further reflect on the dedication of the English people to win World War II.