Initial Musings/Victims of Fascism

08/02/09

The German word of the day: verdienen, which means to earn

So today being the Orientation for the program there is not an outrageous amount to write about, but the first experiences with the rest of the group were very positive. After spending a small amount of time in Vienna twice before, it was very cool to realize that our classroom is a stone’s throw from the Hofburg Palace complex (which I remember vividly from previous trips). Everybody in the program seems to be very accepting and interested, I have great faith that this trip will be very educational and extremely fun.

The “victims of Fascism” memorial adjacent to our classroom was especially intriguing, as it seemed a perfect example of the difficulty with which Austria remembers its WWII past. I’ve actually been lucky enough to get a copy of letters that my great aunt Mary Evelyn wrote while in Vienna in 1946, and there are some very telling passages. She came over here almost directly after the war was over to be with her husband who was in the service, and saw much of the destruction that had been wrecked upon the Third Reich by allied bombers. She described Munich as being completely leveled, while Vienna was in very bad shape and refugees from eastern European countries fleeing the Russians were everywhere. In one letter she described taking a tour of the city with an Austrian guide, who freely admitted to having been very excited when Hitler arrived in Vienna and announced that they were now a part of Germany. She said most in the city at that time were not about to discuss Hitler and everything that had just happened, but I got the feeling from her letter that his feelings had been very widely shared and he was just more honest with himself and the Americans that he was guiding.

Even more interesting than that was her description of a talk that they were all given by an Army officer on the boat trip over. She said that they essentially told them not to associate with the Germans, and certainly not to talk any politics or mention what had just happened between the Allies and Axis. She described another GI standing up and saying that this was not the best solution to the problem, as most were willing to talk candidly about democracy and were more willing to accept what we would consider a “western” ideology than the Army seemed to think. She described the Army officers as very nervous during all of this, and after the other man sat down they said “yes yes that’s all good and true to an extent, but really you should not be fraternizing too much with the Germans”. I can imagine the fear that they must have felt in the very recent wake of the Nazi grip on Europe, but it was an interesting insight into the psyche of Americans as occupiers of Europe.

So one thing I wondered as we passed the “Victims of Fascism”, do they consider those killed by Allied bombers to be victims of this as well? Many occupied cities don’t seem to harbor much resentment toward the Allies for their brutal bombing during the war, but the unique situation that Austria is in may provide for different and more complicated feelings. Personally I think it makes sense to blame all deaths, whether by German occupiers or Allied bombers, on the Nazi Fascists considering that they are largely responsible for the situation as a whole, but I can’t imagine that feelings end there.