Ukrainian War Diary (138): Youth. Happiness. Peace

5/28/23

When I look at this book, I think of my father who took a lot of photos. The photo book entitled “JUGEND. HAPPINESS. I bought PEACE” at a Berlin flea market in 2000 and got it out of my basement a few weeks ago. Since then it has been lying on the balcony table – hopefully the internet experts are right and you can get rid of the cellar smell this way.

Yes, unfortunately the book stinks – and when I leaf through it, a song by Jan Delay that I haven’t heard in years comes to mind: “Everything is poisoned”. And I’m not thinking about the mold. The poison I mean is Soviet propaganda, which can be found throughout this illustrated book. Over the years it has only become clearer: every page contains lies.

Where has pacifism gone?

A third of the book, i.e. 80 of 240 pages, is devoted to the subject of peace. “Our earth has long since healed the wounds of war, new cities have sprung up in place of the burned and destroyed cities, the pain has subsided. The song ‘Do you think the Russians want war?’ is loved by millions. It’s a rhetorical question, since history gave the answer a long time ago. The Soviet people have consistently defended the cause of peace, opposed every attempt to use violence in relations between peoples and demanded an end to the arms race. This is the common wish of 270 million Soviet citizens.”

From the photos, mostly young people and children smile at the reader, probably most of them are still alive today, after all, not even 40 years have passed since the publication of the book. I look at their faces and think: what happened to your pacifism? Why are the cities burning again? How could it happen that you, the new Nazis, are to blame?

A few days ago I stumbled across the trailer for Peter Thorwarth’s war drama Blood & Gold with Karel Gott’s hysterical German-language cover of Paint It Black playing in the background. The whole thing looked so silly that I decided to watch the film on Netflix.

Good Nazis, bad Nazis

On the screen of my laptop, the “bad” Nazis are chasing a “good” one in May 1945, and when he escapes them again, they’re looking for gold that used to belong to a Jewish family. The “good” Nazi wasn’t always good, we learn. He only deserts at the beginning of the film and casually mentions that he was at the front for six years. In the end, the “bad” Nazis are defeated, and the “good” Nazi gets the woman and finds his missing daughter.

For months I’ve had a hard time not thinking about the war in Ukraine all the time, and everything I can think of about the film has something to do with it. World War II ended 78 years ago. I think about the future and I try to imagine my grandchildren watching a movie in the year 2301 in which a “good” Russian flees from the front shortly before his country’s defeat. Such a film could be set somewhere on the ruins of Belgorod or Bryansk, and the well-built, handsome Russian soldier who has fought for Kharkiv, Mariupol and Bucha is beginning to realize that he doesn’t want to be a soldier anymore. Will Russia make such films? And will Russia still exist at all?