We in the West must tell our partners from the East that the reunification of former enemies has taken effort, vision, and often painful change: an outstretched hand from a humble heart. Polish demands for more voting weight were one of the main reasons that brought the recent European Union summit in June in Brussels to the brink of failure. The Polish Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski linked his demands to the Second World War. He said in an interview on the Polish radio: 'We only demand that what has been taken from us should be returned. If Poland had not lived through the years 1939-1945, the country would have had 66 million inhabitants.' This reference to the Second World War met a wall of incomprehension in the western European countries.
Some felt that Poland seems to live on another planet. This attitude does not fit the 21st century. Poland seems to show great hatred for Germany. And why did they join the European Union if they cannot leave the past behind? The reactions show that we may have lost sight of how much effort it took for the western European countries who had suffered under Nazism to find a friendly working relationship with Germany. That Germany was again welcome in the family of nations, was by no means a matter of course.
Among several other trend-setters, Moral Re-Armament (as Initiatives of Change was then called) after the Second World War played an important part in the rapprochement and reconciliation between the former enemies. The role of the IofC conference centre in Caux in this process has been well documented. It was one of the first places where Germans were welcomed after the war.
But also outside Caux, the message of reconciliation and cooperation was spread through plays and visits. Some campaigns lasted years. Besides the activities of MRA there were many others: youth- and student exchange programmes, city links through which thousands visited and felt connected to each others cities, efforts to harmonize history books and so on. This reconciliation process involved the leaders as well as millions of ordinary people, and formed the basis of the cooperation between the European countries which ultimately led to the European Union.
But all this took place on the western side of the iron curtain. Instead of going through the painful process of looking at the past, trying to heal wounds and learning to live and work together with your former enemies, the countries on the eastern side of the iron curtain went from one dictatorship into the next and were brought up at school in a special brand of History, where their nations and their allies (foremost the Russian) were the victims of the ideological villains Nazism and Fascism, and eventually the Heroes of the antifascist war. As it happens in this story, the main villain role is embodied by Germany. There was no will to heal the past. On the contrary, new traumas were added to the old ones. One Dutch newspaper put it this way: for many Poles the Second World War only ended in 1989. Only then came an end to the aftermath of this war, in which Poland lost 20% of its population, half of them Jewish. And now, after the EU summit, Poland continues to offend Germany. Not only Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski compares the present Germany with that of the time when Hitler came to power, in a recent radio broadcast, but Polish magazines have published very offensive cartoons.
In Germany, newspapers recall the efforts Germany has made to make amends towards Poland. Ever since Willy Brandt’s 1970 visit to Poland, when he knelt down in front of the monument of the revolt against the Nazi’s in the Warsaw ghetto, there have been initiatives both from leaders and ordinary citizens to that end. Angela Merkel, who with her East German DDR background understands and loves Poland, visited that country immediately after coming into power. But the love does not seem to be reciprocal. On the 1 May 2004 ten countries, eight of which share the same communist past, became members of the European Union, later to be followed by more. But to become really part of the family of European nations, more is needed than only this membership.
Travelling through Europe and visiting each others countries you realize how much we, as European countries, have in common: art, music, literature, architecture. And history too, yes, except for 45 years. And it is the experience of those years which make up a great gap in mentalities. In the network of Initiatives of Change too, we notice that this gap is not easily bridged. In order to address it, a group from west and eastern Europe organised in October 2006 a meeting in Kiev of all those involved in the work of IofC in Europe. This meeting, which received the name European Saeima (a Latvian word for meeting), marked a step in the closer cooperation between our countries. One outcome of this meeting was the recent pilot project 'Action for Europe', which lasted six weeks and has just ended in Riga. It is meant to create more understanding by visiting each others countries and trying to live into each others lives. When the group was visiting the Netherlands, one of the East Europeans shared that she had been afraid of West Europeans. But through this visit she learned that they were like ordinary people, and you could even have a good laugh with them.
The lesson to be taken from the latest EU summit is that all of us need to know our history. And then we must share our stories. We in the West must tell our partners from the East that the reunification of the former enemies in the West has taken effort, vision, and often painful change: an outstretched hand from a humble heart. We have had to recognise our own responsibilities, for instance in the plight of our Jewish compatriots. As it turns out, nobody is without fault. And we must listen to their stories and try to live into what it was like for them during the 45 years that we were separated. We must learn about each other’s past so that we can share the future.
NOTE: Individuals of many cultures, nationalities, religions, and beliefs are actively involved with Initiatives of Change. These commentaries represent the views of the writer and not necessarily those of Initiatives of Change as a whole.
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