Readings in Bad Kreuznach

My international book reading tour began, and meanwhile I gave two readings in Bad Kreuznach (Germany) – one for adults in the public library and the other one in Sophie Sondhelm school for students of grade ten. 

During my readings in Belgium and the Netherlands, I had often heard from the audience that they found it interesting to learn about the experiences of “the other side” in the Second World War. Now I heard this sentence for the first time in Germany. I was told that the school is very active in remembrance work, but they have usually focussed on the Jewish victims and never really looked at what the rest of the German population experienced. They said the focus so far has mainly been on dealing with the guilt.

In both readings I realised that the types of questions that the audience asked me afterwards and the topics they mention have slightly changed in comparison to the last months and years. People increasingly bring up the current world situation, even though I value to stay factual and unpolitical during my readings and in my work in general. One student asked me what my great-grandfather, who was the students’ age and spent his whole youth in the Second World War, would do if a war happened again. I had the impression that people are worried and think a lot about it. I realised that they might relate better to the topic that I read about than they probably would have ten or fifteen years ago, but at the same time, this gives it an unpleasant topicality that I wish it did not have.