Marion's Miscellaneous Musings

My husband recommended a book for reading on the airplane: "Rise and Fall of the Great Powers" by Paul Kennedy, subtitled: "Economic change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000." This title is sort of inaccurate, since the book was published in 1987.

My husband promised me that, while the book has interesting high points, there are a lot of statistics to slog through, and it would help me sleep on the plane.

Didin't work.

In fact, I had to buy another book at Schipohl Airport for the flight home.

It was strange to read about World Wars 1 and 2 while in Europe, to see place where there had been such sorrow and misery. To finally understand what exactly the Hapsburg Empire Was. To find out what World War 1 was about -- nobody trusted anybody, and when the Archduke was fought, everybody invaded their favorite enemy. And then Germany gets punished because it is the last enemy standing -- Russia withdrew into its own revolution, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire disappeared.

The result of that punishment was World War 2.

I asked the German Kid what he was taught about Hitler and WW2. He said "To be ashamed."

I remember in grade school, hearing that Auschwitz and other Concentration Camps had been preserved, feeling admiration for the Germans, that they would preserve such things as a warning for the rest of us.

I think that, were the US in the same position as Germany after WW1, perhaps we would have allowed the rise of a Hitler.

In Haarlem, I visited the Ten Boom house. The Ten Boom family, because they were Christians, hid Jews during WW2. They were arrested and sent to prison, but their Jews escaped. Corrie survivied the war and wrote "The Hiding Place." We were warmed and encouraged by the story.

The top picture is a plaque on the outside of a house, the bottom picture is of the space where the Jews were hidden during the raid.

Friends went to the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam. They felt down afterward.

The Dutch are not taught that today's Germans are repsonsible for WW2.