I feel my
grandfather sometimes, I feel his
presence, or maybe it's
wishing that I did causing that feeling. He died way before I was born (from mercury poisoning). I'm 20 now, and my
mother was about 5 when the
Nazis were raging around her country -
Germany - trying to round up the
Jews and other
miscreants to shove in their
death camps. My grandfather was a scientist - the villages' doctor, but a chemist first; when my mother and her sister were starving due to the rationing, he would make medicine and
glycerine and rosewater solution along with soap etc in exchange for food. Apparently he was pretty funny too, but that's not what I'm talking about right now. Anyhow, he didn't join the army.
My grandfather, who was not Jewish, had a lot of
Jewish friends. And when the
SS came to round up all the Jews from the village, he got all his Jewish friends (and their friends and families) and put them in small cavities in the several massive piles of
coal he had in his outhouse he had dug out. The SS came to the house and stuck their bayonets into the piles of coal (and hit a few people but they kept quiet). Undoubtedly, he was risking his life when he could have very easily turned a
blind eye.
It is very hard to imagine what living under
Hitler's
regime must have been like. Apparently he once visited the village where my grandparents lived, and they all had to line up against a road whilst he was driven down it giving the ol' salute.
When they got back from the rally, everybody swore that he was staring at them the whole time. And some of these people were on the other side of the road. What I'm trying to say is that he had a
massive influence, over everybody in that country, regardless of whether you liked him or not. You may say that's a given, but I'm just pointing out that I'd probably go along with what I was forced to do... I wouldn't have had the courage he did.
A bit later of course, he was rounded up and taken to a
POW camp in the USA. He didn't return until 5 years later,
emaciated, and I would presume, pretty traumatised - and yet things got back to normal pretty quickly. As far as I know, he didn't let the experience affect my mother's family.
I consider my grandfather to be an actual
hero, and he is very much a
role model for me, although I have no idea what he was really like - or even if the story as I know it is true - nevertheless, I try to live up more to my grandfather than my father (and I've actually met my father... well, a few times), and I often hope there is in fact an
afterlife so I can meet someone who, even with scant information to go on, I feel I have a real connection with, and a great admiration for.
Although I'd like to believe that I'm similar to him, I think were he noding this, he'd have the
courtesy and
mental discipline to remember
his grandfather's first name, unlike me,
the piece of shit that I am.