A More Serious Blog

Around the age of 11 or so I became fascinated with the story of Anne Frank and the seven people who hid along with her in the attic of a merchant house in Amsterdam for two years during World War II. Much like my obsession with the Challenger explosion when I was in 3rd grade, the plight of Anne Frank was pushed to the back of my mind until recently. Last night I watched a film version of her story. My soon-to-be four year old son joined me halfway through the movie and began firing off one question after another.

My maternal grandfather spent five years in the United States Army’s Third Armored Division, 36th Infantry. He was a great shot but drove halftracks instead because he could speak German. Growing up in a town once known affectionately as “Little Germany” and having parents who could read, write, and speak German, my grandfather could communicate with German POWs. That is how I became interested in the Second World War, though I am careful with the questions I ask him because I have no idea what it is like to live with the memories he has from combat and from seeing a death camp.

When I came across the plight of Anne Frank I was instantly attracted to the story of a young girl living in fear everyday. Freddy Krueger and Jason Vorhees never scared me, nor do the M. Night Shyamalan movies. The original (and best) version of The Shining freaked me out. Living in an attic without being able to go to the bathroom or move unless absolutely necessary for eight or nine hours a day because it might mean you will die a horrible death is the ultimate horror story. I cannot imagine what the eight in that Amsterdam attic went through everyday. The sound of a siren, the clanking of boots against the streets, a scream somewhere off in the distance, this had to be torture and the worst part arguably was the inability to tell when it would end.

My four year old son fired away with the questions. The people hiding in the attic were the first topic. They had to hide from the bad guys because the bad guys did not like the church of the people hiding. In spite of his distaste for church, my son understands what it is and that is why I described the movie that way. He also learned a bit of German--one sentence, actually--when two German soldiers investigated a burglary at 263 Prinsengracht.

Es ist eine Katze.

He and I went over those words over and over. I would say it and he would try to say it and then I would say it again and he would mispronounce it again. His attention would return to the screen and the questions would resume. Then I would ask him to tell me the German phrase he had just learned and I would have to refresh his memory.

Es ist eine Katze.

Of course, the focus of the film for him shifted from the people hiding in the attic to the two German soldiers. He wanted to know all about them. That is when it occurred to me that the German soldiers were the reason I was so interested in Anne’s story. I have never read her diary, though it was probably assigned me in school at some point in the past. I probably browsed through it, skimmed some pages, got the general ideas for discussion (it is possible to make it through college using this method, I am not lying). The Nazis were what scared me. The guys in the loud boots with the helmets whose metal dropped down behind the ears. The guys who looked awfully austere and possibly constipated in old films of Nazi rallies. The kind of guys who tried to kill the man responsible for bringing my mother into this world. The kind of guys who were supposed to have blond hair and blue eyes and didn‘t know lucidity from a plate of schweinsbraten. The kind of guys I want to kick in the nuts for scaring me as a kid.

I have contemplated my first tattoo and although I am not a tattoo bearing kind of guy there is one that I want to get. It is the 3rd Armored Divisions logo consisting of a yellow, blue, and red triangle with a “3” and a black tank/halftrack with a red lightning bolt cutting diagonally through the tank/halftrack. Below that with a yellow background is the word, SPEARHEAD. I am tempted to get these words added below that: Don’t Let The Spearhead Catch You Schlafen.

I believe the Germans are truly good people who had to be taught a lesson.

Someday, when the squiggly, awkward lines of rosacea map my nose and hair the size of eyebrows grow from the outer rims of my ears I will pull out a red flag with a white circle in the middle that holds the place of a disjointed and crooked black figure known infamously as the swastika. It is then that I will tell my grandkids or whomever will listen that a guy I knew had brought this thing back from a far off place full of people trying to kill each other in the name of something that I still believe no one understands completely. And the story of the people hiding in the attic will come up and the bad guys will get a lot of attention because they are scary despite being scared themselves from living in a country gone mad.

Then I will teach them a simple German phrase.

Es ist eine Katze.