Waldeckongoing
It‘s the end of November and it‘s been raining for the last few days. Today, everything is simply grey.
The landscapes, the houses and the people are all clouded over. Suddenly, everything seems bleak, sad and harsh. During my last encounter with a married couple, something strange yet predictable happened.
The region I am travelling through is marked by the violence of National Socialism. It not only provided an ideal breeding ground for the establishment of Nazi ideology, but also served as an important location for the Waffen-SS.
I rang a doorbell.
“How long has that graffiti been on your barn?” I asked an elderly couple whose barn was covered in obvious right-wing extremist and anti-Semitic graffiti. ‘Mmm, which graffiti are you talking about?’ ‘This one,’ I replied, showing them a picture on my mobile phone. “No, we haven’t noticed that. Is it on our barn?’ Strange, I thought, they don’t know what’s happening in their own yard, even though it looks so well kept. “How long has it been there? Last year, two years, or longer?” “Maybe five years, but I don’t know exactly when. Come on in.’ I went inside with them. A few years earlier, European right-wingers had met at the inn across the street for a networking event. The story has been passed on ever since, and now, 80 years later, völkisch and nationalist groups are settling down again and the AfD is gaining great popularity. The past, inscribed in many places, is still there to remind us. What was experienced has been suppressed, masked and glossed over by generations.
The cycle of violence continues.