GERMANY: In the last month there have been two large Nazi demonstrations. One was on February 14th the anniversary of the bombing of Dresden, 1945. For those of you who don't know about that the British flew over Dresden beginning at 10pm February 13th, the night was perfect and everything was visible, there was little protection of the city because of the belief that Dresden would not be a target, and bombed it heavily in two phases which very successfully destroyed the center of the city. We, the Americans, followed this by bombing the next day taking out any military targets that were left. 25 -40,000 people died. Some of you may feel sad about that, and I did too, and do, but if you read all that happened before that to the Jews and anyone who opposed the regime, you would not be so sorry. the morning of the bombing a Jewish man was given the job of telling the other Jews left that they were to report two days later to be sent to "work." "Work" meant, death. They had escaped up to this time because they were married to Arians. Earlier that day he had said, "Someone should destroy this city."
During the communist years the communists lied to the Dresdners telling them that it was the Americans that destroyed Dresden. We were vilified and lied about. Dresdners, because they were situated in a valley couldn't get outside radio or television like other parts of Germany could. Few people here heard the truth.
Thousands of polizei came from other parts of Germany to protect against violence. There was fear for Americans, Jews, Brits and other foreigners. Nevertheless, during the Nazi demonstration a large group of people gathered on the steps of the Bruehlterrasse to do a counter demonstration. They unrolled a huge Israeli, an American, and a British flag with a sign saying, "Thank you for liberation."
Here's a WaPo article on it. My eyes glaze over when I see this stuff in the paper, but in a letter from someone I care about, it comes to life.
I told this person they ought to be blogging - and how and why.
