Search for the Fallen in a Now-Quiet Forest
Jeffrey Fleishman
As I read this passage, all I could think in my mind was, Antigone. Yet Erwin Kowalke’s story compelled me more than Sophocles’ Antigone. What Kowalke was doing for the dead Russians and Germans who were killed and left without an improper burial was more heart wrenching for me than Antigone’s struggle for her brother. Do not get me wrong, I enjoy Sophocles’ version of Antigone – the boundaries between “family versus state” were often blurred and contested throughout the play; the end result a tragedy. But in Kowalke’s story, he is not fighting for a “proper burial” of someone he knows and loves. It is true, his father was a soldier who fought in the war and was killed in France only after returning home on “June 3 and three days later it was D-Day in Normandy and they called [his father] back” (HCC Reader, 235).
Kowalke was taking action not for any gratification from the state or divine, but merely to honor those whose lives were taken in the war. By digging up the bones of these Russian and German soldiers, Kowalke is often criticized. Kowalke stated that, “Some Germans get mad at me”, since he also excavates Russian soldiers, but Kowalke realizes that al those who have passed away, despite whether they are Russian or German, deserve a proper burial (HCC Reader, 236). Oftentimes, Kowalke is unable to identify who was once the living person that is left behind only by what could stand the test of 60 years – the bones.
Kowalke is similar to Antigone – striving for the proper burial of young men who passed before them. Kowalke, however, struggles not only for young men that he is related to or knows personally, rather he digs into the cold earth for those who came before him, those who influenced his generation and his time. To Kowalke, it does not matter whether the bones belonged to a Russian or German, just that “the dead deserve a bit of honor” ((HCC Reader, 236).
2 comments:
i like how you include your reaction to kowalke--that it is "more heart-wrenching" than antigone... does it seem to anyone that his task is in itself kind of a tragedy?
I agree with your take on Kowalke's task of excavating and burying the soldiers' bones as more compelling. It evokes some sort of Aristotelean empathy, as Professor Hart mentioned in lecture. One relates his or her emotions to Kowalke's experience, especially since he takes upon this mission in honor of his father lost in France.
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