Thought-provoking collection

books:


	• Tearing the Silence : On Being German in America Ursula Hegi, 1998 - 304 pages average customer review:based on 17 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

book review

very interesting reading , You don't have to of German heritage to understand the why and how German's are viewed since the war .

Thought-provoking collection

Ursula Hegi moved to the US from Germany at the age of 18. She was born one year after the war ended, and she remembers vividly what her elders told her about those years. In her Introduction to _Tearing the Silence_, she states why she wrote this book, and how it helped her identify with her cultural heritage. With the title _Tearing the Silence_ she makes her point very clear: Post-war German immigrants have stories to tell.

Hegi conducted interviews with post-war German immigrants in the US. Most of the stories were similar to her own: born and raised in Germany during, or after, World War II, and immigration to the United States before age 20. Some are children of SS officers, others are children of privates. Some live happy lives and do not focus on the past, others are haunted by what happened.

There are some great stories in the book--very thought-provoking. I was amazed at how some of the same phrases were repeated in all of the stories--even though the interviewees never met each other. Many were told that there parents "...never knew about the Holocaust", and others said "Germans suffered too..."

With _Tearing the Silence_, Hegi provided a much-needed contribution to World War II history, and biography.

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Tearing the Silence

Ursula Hegi must have been squirming during some of these interviews, as the subjects were sometimes brutally and tastelessly honest about their feelings. I found that honesty a draw for me to keep reading. Having read 'Stones From the River', and a few other Hegi novels, I was familiar with her style. However, she mostly lets her interview subjects guide the way; she does great with this style as well. Anyone who is in the least bit interested in what goes on in the minds of some of Germany's children from World War II, should pick up a copy.

The Silences of War

Tearing the Silence by Ursula Hegi tells the unique and sometimes painfully insightful stories of sixteen German men and women, including the author herself, who were born just after World War II. They are the now-adult children of the German families who lived in Germany during the years of Hitler's Third Reich.

Unlike the many books that have been written about the Jewish experience in concentration camps, these interviewees are the children of Christian families who were not driven out of Germany, but who suffered the consquences of living in wartorn Germany, and their parents' refusal to talk about the atrocities occurring openly in their daily lives.

To her great credit, the author does not paraphrase what she learned from her interviewees. She records their answers faithfully. As I read, I can hear the accents, the speakers' sometimes awkward phrasing, and the wholehearted sincerity of these emigres as they responded thoughtfully and conscientiously to Hegi's probings concerning their lives during this troubling time in our history.

Each interviewee discussed the resentment and often anger they still feel toward their parents for hiding the truth from them, for refusing to answer their questions or for dismissing them with, "We didn't know," or "We just did what we were told." Many of them talk about how their parents' silence and evasions resulted in their own stifling sense of inferiority and lack of trust. Many of them admitted that they still grapple with those feelings today.

I was deeply touched as I read the complicated and conflicting feelings discussed because I too am German, though, being Jewish, my family fled in time to avoid the war. And I too was turned away when I questioned my parents about why we had to leave. I know now that my parents were unable to discuss the trauma of being evicted from their beloved homeland--the country that defined their heritage and which they could not bear to leave. As one woman told Hegi, "You write about things most of us don't dare to look at." Johanna admits to a sentiment many of us share: "If this can be done by human beings, it can be done by me. She asks over and over, "What can we do so this will never happen again?"

Hans-Peter believes that it is already happening again. When visiting Germany he saw the hatred against the foreigners whom Germans believe are stealing their jobs. He saw again how groups of people insist that they are superior to others. He lives with the feeling (and fear) that someone may one day treat him with the same hatred, the same unmitigated violence, and that the same discrimination will start all over again.

A subject that comes up frequently among the interviewees is the dilemma of feeling neither at home in America nor at home in Germany: They feel too German to feel like true Americans and too American to ever feel at home again in Germany.

In addition to their disorientation, there is much shame around being German: "How can we expect others not to hate us for what we have done?" The author tells the story about her fourteen-year-old son Eric's friend, who, upon learning that she is German, asks: "Does that mean you are a Nazi?" She hears the question and can hardly breathe.

Hegi writes about the obedience to authority that was ingrained in all of us and in most of German citizenry, generation after generation. Marika tells us how she believed that if she did exactly as she was told, if she was just "good enough," everything would turn out all right... both in the political future of her country and in her steadily deteriorating marriage. She believed that under no circumstances must she "make waves," or she would "lose everything."

I must say here that this is not just a German way of being. It is universally human to want to take the easier, smoother road. That is why this book has much to offer everyone. I was moved to tears as well as uplifted with admiration as I read the stories of these postwar men and women who experienced firsthand the evils of the Third Reich and have the courage to speak about it.

Hegi, in my view, expresses what is most important in her book when she reminds us of the importance of taking the time to talk with one another... not just about the good things in our lives but about our worries and conflicts as well. She admits there may be pain involved..."But that is only a part of it; there is so much more." Speaking openly and with trust will lead to a greater understanding of ourselves and of one another, and much tragedy will be averted that comes from the refusal to discuss and confront our uncertainties and different points of view.

by Duffie Bart
for Story Circle Book Reviews
www.storycirclebookreviews.org
reviewing books by, for and about women

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Wow.

Hegi has proven herself as equally talented in the nonfiction arena as she has steadfastly excelled in the fiction genre.

reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4

Ursula Hegi grew up in Germany and moved to the United States at age 18. As she grew older and raised a family, questions about her roots and her native land haunted her until, at last, she felt compelled to write about them. Tearing the Silence brings together her interviews with dozens of German-born Americans, and their confrontations with the taboo of the Holocaust.

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