I would not do it…
’Silly goose!’ stormed Adam. ‘We share collective guilt! What a…’ he went on. ‘She blames us for sharing a collective guilt!
We were standing in the corridor. Staring at him, wondering what a terrible woman could make him so annoyed.
Who does?
A certain Kati >Marton
‘Who’s that?’‘Don’t know. Actually, doesn’t matter.
‘Why are you so furious with her?’
‘Just look at her article on the wall. Over there.
Adam’s rude words excited my curiosity. Being more and more interested in it, I read the article with suspense. ‘A Town’s Hidden Memory’.Um. That’s strange. ‘Ugly paved square’, ‘Miskolc has buried its past’ and ‘there are other Miskolcs in the world, places where great crimes were committed and then buried’. These are coarse words. She continues: ‘place of averted eyes, sour and soulless’. Is that Miskolc? Is that my home? Is that me and my family?
Memories, pictures and point of views came up. I did not hear the noisy corridor. My brain was writing my response.
Dear Ms. Marton!
I agree with you. Collective guilt, committed during the World War II, is shameful. We can’t be proud of it. We can’t hide it. We can’t forget it. Germany of the 60s appears to me. Demonstrations, Habermas: pictures from the welfare. A whole well-to-do country, German youth couldn’t treat the shock caused by the war. It is incomprehensible, even today. How could Europe (or one of its most intelligent nations) go mad? Will they always be marked with a red ‘G’ as ‘Guilty’? We must forgive Europe in order to live in peace. Ask Palestinians, ask people in Kosovo and they will answer that they need peace. Lots of people want to forget to live in peace. Ms. Marton, your words tear up wounds. I would not do it.
Dear Ms. Marton!
Of course, we cannot forget Auschwitz, we cannot forget Szálasi, we cannot forget the noise of machine-guns. We cannot, but we should, I think. One must start new life. Americans have forgotten Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Spaniards have ‘forgotten’ Franco’s tyranny. Russians try to ‘forget’ GULAG. Serbs must ‘forget’ Kosovo. Afghans must ‘forget’ the Taliban. ‘Forget’ here means ‘forget with remaining memory’. I think you, Miss Marton, consider this kind of forgetting to be impossible. I would not do it.
Dear Ms. Marton!
You claim we have lost our memory, if we had at all. You declare we have buried our past, we do not respect innocence victims of WWII. You blame, among others, me for ignoring awful events, massacres and carnage. You, dear Ms. Marton, blame me for participating in ethnic cleansing during the war. One can say ‘If the cap doesn’t fit, don’t wear it!’. One must be right. But you don’t say it. You talk about all of us; ‘averted, sour and soulless’ eyed men in Miskolc. You have blamed thousands of people you do not know. I would not do it.
Dear Ms. Marton!
You ask ‘Where were you, where were your parents, what did you do before’. Apart from a very simple question (‘Where have you been, Ms. Marton, since then?), I’d say my parents were children of 3-5 years old, and, if you are so interested in it, dear Ms. Marton, let see a little reckoning. My mother’s father was dying at Voronyezs (though, you are right, dear Ms. Marton, there wasn’t any ethnic cleansing); my mother’s mother, with her four children, was working herself to death. My father’s parents did the same. Later, my parents were rebuilding the country, trying to build their own life too. Later, I’ve learnt plenty of facts about the war. When I was 5, my elder sister showed me the synagogue in Miskolc. She spoke to me about the war crimes as well. Briefly, I think, this is all about my family’s relation to the war. Is it satisfactory, Ms. Marton? Is it enough? You blamed my family. I would not do it with your one.
Dear Ms.Marton!
Last summer I was in Germany. I met several Germans. As I remember, I did not blame them for ignoring my grandfather’s memory. Maybe I should go to the river Don, I’d surely find something. Everybody has suffered from the war, Ms. >Marton: your parents, my parents, lots of German parents. In fact, the second generation has suffered as well. I think we agree that the WWII was the most terrible event in the 20th century. It affected several families. It affected people’s thoughts. 58 years have passed. And now, you blame us for committing crime. I would not do it.
You say ‘acknowledging crimes does not erase them’. You are right. I absolutely agree with you, Ms. Marton, that people shouldn’t hide their memory behind walls. Anyway, do you know who has built those walls around the synagogue? I don’t know whether it was my grandfather or my father. Or it was the Jewish community in Miskolc. I must see about it.
Dear Ms. Marton!…
Suddenly Adam’s voice has brought me back into the present:
‘Are you coming to have lunch?’
‘No,’ I answered. ’I have a seminar.’
‘What kind of seminar?’
‘The Jews in Hungary in the 20th century’’I replied
Bodnár Attila