Subject: RE: am 15. September 2023 Date: 9/15/23, 23:01 From: klemensbmeyer@gmail.com “Gertrud Denninghaus in Kachtenhausen hätte sich „von ihrem Mann ein Pökelfass aufs Bein werfen lassen“, um freigestellt zu werden.” Last Sunday, Laura’s book group discussed the new novel Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver, who lives in Meadowview. She retells Dickens’s David Copperfield on Route 58 in Lee County, as a story of the opioid epidemic. The protagonist is fascinated with the image of the sea; the closest he gets is Hungry Mother State Park, where he finds the beach littered with needles and condoms. Laura recognized the cultural milieu from what she knew of Konnarock, although I think Konnarock was much tamer even in the 1940s. Her reading friends asked her what my relationship was to that world, and what I thought and felt when I visited there. I pointed out to her that although we had arrived most recently from Damascus and Konnarock, we were clearly not of Damascus and Konnarock. As I spoke, I saw the interior of the house, and longed for it, not as it is, but as it was, when your parents and Margrit and Mommy were living, and we were all there, complete with all the unhappiness and tension and intermittent dissension. I walked mentally around the house, past the retaining wall, and drove around the curve from the swimming hole, past the Baptist church where the pastor held the key, and I walked to Azen with your father on Christmas Day 1968, and to Elk Garden, and to Taylor’s Valley. I have often thought that although I still need to be able to visit, I could not imagine living in Konnarock for any extended period of time, because I would be so desolate. When Carolyn Tracy is gone, everyone will be gone. I think of myself sitting by your mother’s hospital bed sometime in 1987 or 1988, after she had lost the ability to speak in a meaningful fashion. She called for her grandmother, and I wept. My relationship to Damascus, even to the house on the Knoll, is curious and ironic, and relieved, but my attachment to Konnarock is notably more intense than any relationship to place I have heard anyone else express. It has something to do with me and my relationship to the past, not only with my relationship to that place: I also had a very strong reaction to my recent visit to Cope House, and for years, I had dreams of trying to find my way into 5321 Baynton Street. But Konnarock is at a different level, and the epigraph is not irrelevant. I think that my devotion to the place, which after all is just another hill in a valley in the mountains, reflects my internalization of the desperation with which your parents clung to the place as the only home they had left. It must reflect what I sensed from you even when I was a small child, and we drove up from Damascus on Sunday. Konnarock became imbued for me with the magic your mother imputed to the Germany of her memories and her stories. I have the impression that you find my very occasional references to her indecent and embarrassing, but my relationship to Janet Campbell began to end, and my youth began to end, the moment she asked, angrily “What do those two old people on a hill in Virginia have to do with me?” and I sat down in the middle of the Yoho Highline Trail, and wept. “Erzählt uns einen Schwank aus deinem Leben,” your parents used to say to me. I am not sure how much more there is to say. I don’t know whether I have more than one story. From: Ernst J Meyer Sent: Friday, September 15, 2023 11:40 AM To: klemens Meyer Subject: Fwd: am 15. September 2023 -------- Forwarded Message -------- Subject: am 15. September 2023 Date: Fri, 15 Sep 2023 11:36:29 -0400 From: Ernst J Meyer To: Jürgen Hartmann http://ernstjmeyer.ddns.net am 15. September 2023 Lieber Jürgen, Dank für die 28. Ausgabe von Rosenland. Ich hab mit Interesse und Ergriffenheit darin gelesen, besonders Deinen Beitrag über Louis Sternberg. "Ein Kollaborateur der Gestapo? Louis Sternberg aus Paderborn als Vertrauensmann der Reichsvereinigung der Juden in Deutschland" Der ich heute 93 Jahre und 80 Tage alt bin, hab ich die vergangenen neunzig Jahre lang mit meinen Erinnerungen und mit meinem Unverständnis des Nationalsozialismus gerungen, nein, nicht nur mit seinen Folgen, sondern mit seiner Erscheinung als Ausdruck des Wesens der menschlichen Gesellschaft überhaupt. Hat nicht die wesentlich erzwungene "Kollaboration" des gesamten deutschen Volkes den National-Sozialismus ermöglicht? Ist nicht "Kollaboration" - "Mitarbeit" - Zusammenarbeit das Wesen der Vergesellschaftung? Heißt nicht Widerstand das Begründen oder Beitreten zu einer unvermeidlich "feindseligen" oder "verräterischen" "Gegengesellschaft"? Und führt solch Widerstand nicht unvermeidlich zum Krieg? Ist nicht gesellschaftliche Zusammenarbeit die Vorbedingung zum Frieden? Heißt nicht Zusammenarbeit, im Frieden in einer Gesellschaft zu leben, teilzuhaben nicht nur an ihrem Glück und Wohlstand, sondern teilzuhaben auch an ihrem Unglück, an ihren Vergehen, an ihrer Schuld? Ich hab mich von jeher gefragt, was es bedeutet schuldig zu sein, und ob es nicht vielleicht auch mir persönlich unmöglich ist der Schuld aller Gesellschaften die ich überlebt habe, einbeschlossen der deutschen, zu entgehen, wenn nur, weil mein Überleben beweist, dass ich ihr keinen Widerstand geleistet habe? Ich danke Dir für Deine sorgfältigen und gewissenhaften historischen Forschungen, und bitte Dich meine verschrobenen Gedanken der Geistesschwäche meiner dreiundneunzig Jahre anzurechenen - und zu entschudligen. Dein Jochen