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From: Amanda B
Category: Books
Date: 26 April 2004
A riveting account about a high ranking female member of the Nazi Youth 'elite' in Germany, in the years before the war, during and after. Asides from the amazing fact that millions were brainwashed into an immoral, misleading ethos, through fear and national loyalty, an intriguing aspect of the book is how much it translates into the modern world. For instance the lead female character is put in charge of a German woman's labour camp in Poland, the main aim being to resettle German farm workers into deposed Polish homes as part of the plan to take over Poland and the lost border territories of Germany which had been taken away after the First World War. After being a Hitler Youth press editor, her job involved organising the expulsion of Poles from their homes, forcing them to leave basic amenities for the new owners. She writes: '...in some senses it is easier to live in a state in which all spheres of life are 'ideologically regimented'. But believe me the fact that I can now believe that peaceful co-existence between neighbouring nations is a practical possibility -however painfully far from realization this remains as far as the East is concerned - feels to me like a release from an evil curse. It is torment to live in a world of ideas where hate and enmity between nations are the ultimata ratio and the only solution. In making the inner volte face I am speaking of, I discovered how much more happily we can live if we are prepared to take the utopian commandment, 'Love they neighbour', seriously, and in the rivalry between nations as well.' These words are more affecting when we realize that the world has not learnt from Hitler's mistakes and wars still occur every day over territory, ownership and refusal to share with other nationalities, asides from general racist and zenophobic issues. Whether the driving force is a fierce pride in protecting one's land from foreign territories, or a fear from the threat of other differences and nations, this modern world has not learnt to live as one. After the Second World War, the author is forced to realise she has been deceived and mistaken in her blind following of Hitler. Does it take genocide to highlight the wrongdoings of nationalistic and ego driven attitudes, when all the barbarity which has occured since this document still goes on and leading Governments have not taken note. See if you can catch this riveting book - I found it in a second hand bookshop so do not know if it is still in distribution. The Jewish genocide is also referred to as the author writes to her once good friend, a Jew and asks to be forgiven. Account Rendered, A dossier on my Former self by Melita Maschmann.
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