I have never felt uncomfortable in Germany or Poland, but I did in Romania, which is where my grandparents are from. I found myself looking at the different people and wondering if they would be willing to work as guards in camps like those who guarded my grandfather.
He had a story about how there was one guard, also a teenager like himself, that he once helped with his homework. The same guard that beat him on a weekly basis. When they were done he asked him "why do you beat us" and he simply replied "if we don't beat you, they will beat us". I never asked, but now I find myself wondering: who were "they"? His superiors? The Germans? Adults in general?
To this day I get shivers whenever I think about this interaction. And something about being in Romania just felt off every time I was there.
I have never felt uncomfortable in Germany or Poland, but I did in Romania, which is where my grandparents are from. I found myself looking at the different people and wondering if they would be willing to work as guards in camps like those who guarded my grandfather.
He had a story about how there was one guard, also a teenager like himself, that he once helped with his homework. The same guard that beat him on a weekly basis. When they were done he asked him "why do you beat us" and he simply replied "if we don't beat you, they will beat us". I never asked, but now I find myself wondering: who were "they"? His superiors? The Germans? Adults in general?
To this day I get shivers whenever I think about this interaction. And something about being in Romania just felt off every time I was there.