Worswick,
"I might add on a personal note that many Chinese still today refer to the Japanese as "the monekey people" and that, at least in the survivors of the war and their children, there are lasting emnities between the Chinese in regards to the Japanese. If the Jews who survived Germany rate a "5" in thier dislike of the Germans I'd rate the Chinese at about a "9" in their dislike of the Japanese."
My father-in-law is one of those "Jews who survived Germany", as are the parents of my closest friend while growing up. After 30-40 some years of being unable to even speak German, they have all made their peace with the country and their native cities, each in his/her own way, as bizarre as that sounds. This is not to say, of course, that every survivor has made finally made peace. But, IMHO, contrary the recent spate of rancorous books about the complicity of all of the German people, the madness that overtook that country during those years was a madness more than a permanent condition (as the enmities between the various Asian countries appear to be).
However, the possibility of the recurrence of that madness is undoubtedly a permanent condition. In Germany as everywhere else (except possibly Denmark). |
