I've had a life long phobia of Nazis. I know a lot of people sort of do. But being the little Jewkin that I am, with the particularly morbid sort of reading habits I've always had, I read a number of books about the Holocaust when I was way too young to have done so without incurring serious emotional damage. I started having Nazi dreams when I was five or six years old, and they've always been terrible nightmares from which I've woke up crying or screaming or shaking and terrified to move. When I was growing up, just hearing the German language spoken was enough to put me on edge.
But last night, I had rather pleasant dreams about dining with Nazis in full military regalia. They were such polite people; they were very kind to me. We danced and had a terrific time being on top of the world.
I don't know if that dream has any hidden unconscious meaning. I can think of a few interpretations. But I imagine it was just the influence of too much German History on a brain. I'm learning German language in school now. I have an exam Monday that I've been sort of studying for, so it was on my mind right before I went to bed. I'm taking a German History in the 20th Century course in school now too, and we're studying WWII and the rise of Nazism. For the moment, we're not talking about the Holocaust. We're very consciously trying to keep it separate from other studies of the event; We'll study the Holocaust as a separate unit, after we've covered the war. It's strange to think of Germany in WWII without thinking of the Holocaust.
Hitler has always been the ultimate embodiment of human evil to me. I have never been able to imagine a more cruel or sinister man. But as a student of history, I may have run across a few contenders for the title. It's strange that I don't have bad dreams about Stalin. I've read some nasty accounts of the Gulag Archipelago. I'm a huge fan of Aleksandr Solzehnitsyn. Of course, I didn't really become a fan of Solzehnitsyn until college whereas I'd read accounts of the Holocaust when I was five.
In a total change of subject, I think that movies mess up your brain perhaps. When I’m reading a book, I feel it more than picture it. And if I do picture it, it’s always a scene in still-frame, or a single bit of movement by a character. Never a movie-like reel of moving pictures and plot lines. I vastly prefer books to movies. I don’t need to see everything to feel everything, and in fact, seeing everything encumbers my ability to feel it.
BAH! Dad's here and won’t shut up. Will have to stop rambling again. Old man is annoying today. He took my car, when he darn well knew I had to be in town at three, and brought the thing back at three and wondered why I was upset. Annoying old man. Must go.
posted by Sarie @
3:05 PM
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