When I lived in Germany in the early ’90s, my then-girlfriend’s father—a retired high school history teacher—early one pleasant afternoon invited me for a walking tour of his hometown. As we strolled along, he pointed out old buildings and landmarks, explaining their historical significance. It was one of the rare times we had fun together—just the two of us. Not because he disliked me, but because he didn’t quite understand me.
Born in 1929, he didn’t laugh much. He was an intellectual, a deeply Lutheran humanist, in poor health (a heart condition), and while not at the end of his life, he seemed preoccupied with his mortality. I was born in 1968 and, well—me: a footloose-and-fancy-free American atheist iconoclastic Jew just beginning my adult life. The world was my oyster.
We’d taken a few walks before, but on this particular day, something shifted. As we went along, his stride lengthened, his posture straightened, and he grew more animated—friendly, even charming. I’d never seen this side of him, this personable charisma. He was a bit of a Drama-Tante and Zickentyp, and from bits and bobs I’d picked up—half a comment here, a story fragment there—it seemed he’d always been that way. Yes, he was tall, good-looking, and came from a good family, but I could never quite see what his wife saw in him.
The gradual warming as our private tutorial and afternoon progressed only seemed to invigorate him. It felt as though he wasn’t just walking through the streets of his hometown, but retracing the paths of his life as an educator—connecting with and guiding the young minds he’d shaped over the years.
Even so, the sun grew insistent. As we passed a red-and-white–star-spangled kiosk, he turned to me with a grin. “How about an ice cream?”
Without waiting, he strode over to the young girl behind the counter, coin purse in hand. “Hello, young lady—splendid day for a cooling repast, is it not?”
The girl blinked. He let out a soft chuckle, eyes crinkling. Leaning in conspiratorially, he whispered, “Two Mövenpick, if you please.”
He handed me a cone and took one for himself. After a careful lick, he met my eyes with a twinkle. “Don’t let my wife know about this.”
With our cones half-eaten, we turned a corner and came upon an old one-story brick building with cement-filled windows and shuttered doors, probably early 20th century. I asked him about it. His demeanor changed. His face tightened, and the slight slope in his posture returned. With a grave expression—solemn, yet oddly detached—he told me it had once been a train depot for commercial goods. And where the Gestapo had rounded up and shipped out all the Jews from his town and its environs.
“To extermination,” I said.
“In English?” He prodded.
“To extermination.”
“To extermination," he repeated in English, flatly.
After a pause, he asked, “Does that move you?”
“It’s a serious matter, yes.—I’ve known about it since I was young. I’ve studied the Holocaust, I’m very interested in history.”
He eyed me for a good five seconds.
“‘History.’” He gestured to the old train station. “That has been my life.”
I had offended him. I offered a quick apology, but the damage was done. He said bluntly, “Let’s head home.” We didn’t speak much on the way back. The whole time, I kept turning it over in my head—had I really misstepped that badly? Or was he just being the temperamental man I’d heard about: melodramatic, prickly, hard to read? Now and then, I caught him glancing at me as we trod back—sussing me out.
It was perhaps the most awkward and uncomfortable walk of my life.
When we at last returned, he asked me to go into the back garden—he had something he wanted to show me. I sat down at the garden table, which had been moved a bit from its usual, more shaded position. The late afternoon sun beat down on my face, causing beads of sweat to collect on my forehead. After a quiet stretch of time, he returned with a large, weathered book. Sitting beside me, he placed it on the table, opened it to a page marked with a neatly torn scrap from yesterday’s paper—already recycled that cool morning—and pointed to a line in the passage.
„Der Mensch ist in der Geschichte, und die Geschichte ist in ihm,” I read.
“In English,” he instructed.
“Man is in history, and history is in him.”
“Right. ‘Man is in history, and history in him,’” he echoed. Then, with a slight nod and the hint of a puckish glint in his eyes, he got up and withdrew—leaving the open book in front of me.
I couldn’t help but notice: he had a bit of a stride in his step.
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German phrases
Drama-Tante: Literally “Drama Aunt”; a colloquial German term for someone melodramatic or theatrical.
Zickentyp: A moody, temperamental, or fussy person.
Bewegt dich das?: “Does that move you?”—a familiar and here didactic probing.
Postscript:
I’m not sure if the following serves this diary, but some may want more background. His family had been upper middle class and were not Nazi Party members. He was in the Hitler Youth, was conscripted in 1944, but I never found out what he did during the war. No one talked about it.
His older brother, who lived across the street, once brought out his old photos and army regalia—proudly showing me, much to his wife’s chagrin. He’d started as a Flakhelfer, and with a fast-tracked Abitur and a few connections from his businessman father, was posted as an officer candidate in logistics support. After the war, he earned a degree in engineering and had a successful business career in the same company his father had worked for.
