FOLKS, let us go back to 13th of August 1961 when Germany was divided into East and West by the East Germans. That is the saddest part of all when a country is halved, just like in Korea, formerly Vietnam, and Pakistan, formerly East and West but which spinned off one to be called Bangladesh.
I was able to visit East Germany, in 1984* and my heart felt very, very heavy while riding the train from West to East Berlin and go inside that country. From a very modern setting, I entered another era, as if I was going back to a place that was of 30's vintage. The scenery was full of vacant lots and gray atmosphere. But when I met the people, I felt sadder because I could feel that they were not too happy about the division of their country. There were many good things there -- like having cheap food, and similarly prized goods wherever you went -- meaning, no capitalist competition because the State owned the businesses.
From Berlin, I visited Leipzig where I was able to catch the last screenings of animation films of the Leipzig Film Festival. Yes, culturally, the East Germans were very much in then. Afterwards, I got to visit Potsdam where pictures of Stalin, Churchill and other political figures,signed a treaty. Then the Stadt Berlin Hotel where I was billeted was very posh, and I was able to reach that tall building with a restaurant on the top that has a view of Berlin. I felt very great being in that place, with my theoretically intellectual guide, Rene Hexamer. He was able to give me a good side of the Germans, neither East nor West, that of having a humorous disarming trait. He poked fun at the Russians, who put up their tapestry on the wall instead of the floor. (At that time, Russia had a military camp inside the country and many Germans did not like the idea of falling under their control. It appears now to me that the battle within the Germany was not really between East and West, but rather USA who helped modernize West Berlin, and the whole of West Germany, and USSR who defended East Germany.)My last day was to shop in a store where dollars were accepted as exchange. There I was able to buy a nice watch, which was recommended to me by Rene's driver. He told me, this Seiko watch is good because it has a date and appointment setting features- meaning you can put the date as well as the kind of appointment you will have. What a great advice that was.
One beautiful thing there is that the East Germans are as history-conscious as the west. I was able to visit Sachsenhausen camp, where the Jews were slaughtered through the gas chambers. The people were able to preserve even the bunkers where the captured slept and awaited their fate, whatever - to die or to live as they were not made aware of being killed later on. Rene also told me that even the hair and teeth of the prisoners were collected to be used in some kind of industry and make a profit for the Hitlerite government.
Hence, the visit disabused my mind about the status of East Germany as not really very backward just because it was under a Communist regime. It was also democratic in the sense that they knew Hitler was not a kind person at all in conducting genocide. But one thing was quite stark there: one could not speak nor write freely. All public communications came from the State, no free press, no free radio, no free tv. How sad, really.
After returning to West Germany, I asked a fiend, how do you teach history to the children here in West Germany, especially that WWII era? How do you teach the children that Hitler was bad, or that era was the darkest period in German history and on earth? And he had a hard time answering me. Why because his parents and those of other people profitted from that era -- they had jobs and were able to live peacefully and prosperously. Even the film editor, Karl Fugunt, bless his soul, who came here to the Philippines to teach us film editing up there in Baguio City under the aegis of the Goethe Institut and Kidlat Tahimik's foundation, also could not categorically state that Hitler was a bad example of a ruler.
By the way, in the statistics of those who died during WWII, I told Rene that they should also include Philippine statistics, the number of Filipino soldiers who died defending democracy, as Japan, the ally of Germany invaded our land and held the people captive for 4 years.
So let us look back to these historical periods and find out for ourselves what the downsides are of being a ruler -- when one could be faced with survival and the limits of being humane become a stepping stone to being a dictator. Maybe this is why Hitler committed suicide, when he could not accept his mistakes anymore and that the prospect of being a prisoner by the people whose countries he had bombed and invaded became more real.
But no, suicide should not be the answer. Collective judgment should still be humane. Every person should be allowed to repent, and serve a sentence for destroying people's capacity to be good. Hello, Malacanang uninvited guest!
*I visited East Germany under the sponsorship of Deutsche-Philippine Freundschaft which had a chapter here in the Philippine and where Inday Pineda-Ofreneo was a coordinator. She was able to secure me a visit to EG, which I did after attending the Brussels Super 8mm Film Festival under Robert Malengreau where I presented my films and those of other independent filmmakers like Raymond Red, Cynthia Estrada, Resty Reyes, Ernie, and Clodualdo del Mundo's students' works, among others.
BBC NEWS:
1961: Berliners wake to divided city
Troops in East Germany have sealed the border between East and West Berlin, shutting off the escape route for thousands of refugees from the East.
Barbed wire fences up to six feet (1.83 metres) high were put up during the night, and Berliners woke this morning to find themselves living in a divided city.
Train services between the two sectors of the city have been cut, and all road traffic across the border has been stopped.
They are and remain our German brothers and sisters.
Konrad Adenauer, West German Chancellor
Thousands of angry demonstrators quickly gathered on the West Berlin side of the divide. At one crossing point, protesters tried to trample down the barbed wire, only to be driven back by guards with bayonets.
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