Will we ever grasp the utter futility of war?

We all know that war has far-reaching consequences and that in the aftermath, the horror lingers on. And on.

Still, war is an abstract concept when you’re watching rather than witnessing death and destruction, the loss of hope and the anger or shame that is the residue of conflict.

So is inflicting an ideology on a people, forcing them to learn the language of the invaders and taking away the right to individuality.

I have lived through the second assault on Europe (after World War II), communism, and have been aware of the human degradation of this sociopolitical, philosophical, economic ideology — centred on common ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange. But I have never put a human face to the effect that it has had on people’s lives.

My understanding was academic, abstract, which makes no allowance for empathy that comes from the sharing of lived experience. 

But the introduction of communism for affected parts of Europe was round two of punishment. First, there was Nazism (1933 to 1945) with its totalitarian principle of government, which assumed the racial superiority of Germanic people and the supremacy of the Führer, Adolf Hitler, and which allowed the inconceivable murder of millions of Jews.

I have just spent a month in Europe, my first ever visit to northern Germany and her neighbours, the Czech Republic and Austria, and bumped up against the after-effects of both Nazism and communism, and seen upfront the knock-on effect that will haunt generations to come.

Never will the world forget the Holocaust, the genocide of about two thirds of Europe’s Jewish population, the systematic murder of some six million people.

The Jewish Museum in Berlin keeps this memory, this history, top of mind. There is nothing gentle or comfortable about the modern building that houses this museum. It is all sharp edges, uncomfortable corners, tiny windows that look out on nothing but dark spaces. The granite is charcoal and cold, the stairs sharply raked, and some of the exhibition halls curtained with chainmail. 

I tip-toed through the darkest example of man’s inhumanity to man with a heavy heart. My friend and I were silent for a full 20 minutes after exiting the building, deeply, deeply moved by the despairing energy coming off the photographs, and the memories of lost lives. Entry to this museum is free; people are encouraged to remember this dark past to ensure it never happens again. 

On the other side of the equation, a woman I met talked about the deep shame her German husband had about his name being associated with that of his Nazi war criminal grandfather. The shame continues: her children want to officially change their surname — something that is not allowed in Germany unless circumstances are extreme. She thinks they have a case.

These young Germans fear that the first thing that comes up when their surname is Googled is a Wikipedia entry that details the horrors inflicted by the Nazi doctor who conducted experiments on prisoners, and who was tried and convicted at Nuremberg.

Their view is that their ancestry has been tainted by this evil man. These beautiful young people, despite having three generations of separation, still feel revulsion and shame from the association. They want complete dissociation; a fresh start. 

For me, for most of us, supporting the allies and the winning side of World War II against Hitler and the Nazis was exactly the right thing to do.

And yet, to see the effects of Bomber Arthur Harris’s blitz on Dresden, the devastation visited on that historic city by the controversial saturation bombing tactic — initiated and directed by Harris — is quite sickening.

History records that 25 000 civilians were killed. 

A friend points out that war is war, adding, “They started it.” Of course, that’s true. But the consequence has been destructive, as is the consequence of war. The city was obliterated.

Then the communists came with their “everyone is equal” policy that stripped the joy out of life. Terrible monuments remain in the form of soulless concrete apartment blocks, next to exquisite architectural masterpieces from centuries gone by.

I also spent time with survivors from the Czech Republic who, having lived through communism, tell stories of having escaped to start new lives in strange and foreign lands, and those who tell of how and why they stayed.

Families separated by walls and fences and borders. These are not new stories.

A week before my 31st birthday, on 24 November 1989, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia relinquished power and the single-party state collapsed. I remember the day the Berlin Wall came down that November in 1989. I remember the introduction of a special reparation tax that would allow the reunification of East and West Germany under the watchful eye of the then German chancellor, Helmut Kohl. 

But what I discovered this holiday was how one of my dearest friends, who lived in West Berlin during the time of The Wall, befriended a family in the East, and how she took them bananas, which were a luxury. 

Their life she described as grey, punctuated with scarcity; their home, stuck in the 1950s; their world narrow.

One lovely man, a medical doctor, told of his escape from Czechoslovakia in a Trabant, a ridiculously small car, with his wife and two children. They removed the back seats, and the children had to sit on the hidden suitcases in the seat well. They could not say goodbye to anyone. 

It’s a refugee tale that we are familiar with; the gut-wrenching decision to leave behind a much-loved family, the hardship of being in a new country, of learning a foreign language.

But the shadow of the horror of an abandoned life remains, and the unconscious guilt of leaving loved ones behind continues.

Everywhere in Germany, and in the Czech Republic, are Ukrainian flags. These flags fly outside homes where refugees have been taken in; outside shopping centres; on street corners. The generosity over Christmas for these mostly women and children was overwhelming. Toys, clothes, food … the parcels kept coming.

My friends have a refugee grandmother, mother and her three small children living on their property. They communicate in a smattering of halting English and German. These women speak Ukrainian, a language close to Russian, and have to learn German to be understood in their rescue country. A tough task.

Shopping in a foreign language is hard, as I discovered in a supermarket trying to find lactose-free milk, or in a pharmacy trying to buy shampoo.

The United Nations records that at the end of 2021, there were about 89.3 million forcibly displaced people in the world. Of that number, more than 38 million people were from war zones — Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, the Philippines, Libya and Syria — and have been displaced abroad or in their own countries. 

European history is bathed in blood and cruelty.

Have we not learnt anything about war; about the futility of power grabs, territorial disputes and the need to have dominion over people?

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if in 2023 we saw a ceasefire to global hostilities. I wonder what it would take to make that happen.

Charmain Naidoo is a journalist and regular Thought Leader contributor.The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Mail & Guardian.