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Friday, June 08, 2001

Germany: We have asked for forgiveness and not expected to receive it

"I never realized how much fear, how much suspicion my country still evokes, until I came to America five years ago. Fifty years after a decade of darkness is not a long time. I knew that. And yet it often left me confounded to read how my country was perceived. I started clipping stories from the papers. I have a thick folder labeled 'German' now. There is not a single article about my country in it that does not include the words 'Nazis,' 'past,' 'guilt,' 'uneasy,' 'anti-Semitic,' 'troubling,' 'disturbed,' or 'alarm.' Most of the stories 'evoke the past' or 'raise troubling questions' about my country."

Christian Science Monitor. Mario Kaiser is a German who contemplates what Helmut Kohl called "the mercy of being born late."'

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This is the personal weblog of Grant Barrett, editor of the Double-Tongued Dictionary, a collection of words from the fringes of English. More about this site...

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