My blog is about the Search for the Fallen in a Now-Quiet Forest and Berlin, April 1945.
As I was reading this passage, it was very hard for me to differentiate between whether Erwin Kowalke, the man digging up the bones of fallen German and Russian soldiers, was a morbid, disturbing man or an honorable, respect-worthy human being. However, after reading some of his quotes, such as “…no matter what this generation did, without them you wouldn’t be here” it was apparent to me that Kowalke had good intentions to the deeds he was doing (HCC reader, 235). To me, he acted like a modern day Antigone. Antigone too believed, as quoted by Kowalke, that “the dead deserve a bit of honor” (HCC reader, 236). He seemed like a man who knew that no matter what life a person lived, when they die, their death should be honored because their life was not meaningless. Kowalke even dug up the bodies of Russian soldiers, something that the German people became upset about because the Russian soldiers had murdered many Germans (and vice versa, as well). However, Kowalke explained to them that it was the Germans who started the war, and that the Germans should not “forget history” (HCC reader, 236). This can be paralleled to Antigone’s brother, Polyneices. He was a man who people believed did not deserve a proper burial. Antigone went against this, and stood firm that his death must be respected because he too, is a man worthy of such honor.
This passage can also be comparable to the “Prologue: Berlin, April 1945”. It is a story about two sisters who witness their brother being hung. These two sisters can be mirrored to Ismene and Antigone. This part of the passage most intrigued me:
First Sister: “Then I looked at my sister./ Would she now under the penalty of death/try to free her brother? If only he had not died” (HCC reader, 195).
This makes me relate it to Ismene, being the First Sister, to Antigone, being the Second Sister. The First Sister/Ismene were more concerned with not breaking the law, and in all denying any relations to their brother. The First Sister even states, “Please sir, don’t arrest us./ We don’t know this person at all” (HCC reader, 195). Here, the sister acts like a coward. This attribute is something that I connect to Ismene. I believe that because she did not primarily help Antigone bury Polyneices because of her fear of breaking the law, she acted cowardly and gutlessly.
All in all, I believe that people in today’s society should have more character, such as those of Kowalke and Antigone. I think that those who act like the First Sister and Ismene take the easy way out of difficult situations. I once heard the quote, “Land of the Free, Because of the Brave”, which reminds me of the Kowalke passage, because he understood that whether the soldier was Russian or German, both groups fought for what they believed in, and who is he to not respect the other’s life.
3 comments:
as i mentioned in class, i really like how you not the tension between kowalke as a "morbid, disturbing man" and as a "honorable, respect-worthy man"--it's not to difficult to feel this way about antigone, hitler (well in the weimar period insofar as he convinced the public he was worthy of respect), bush, other examples??
The fact that you present this opposition about whether he is good or bad is very interesting. I did not think of it that way but i beleive that Kowalke is indeed a good person because he is only trying to find a place for these uknown souls. There were so many soldiers that were lost and their family had NO idea where they were. My favorite part of this article was about the old woman who was talking to the box of bones.
It is interesting how you can look at Kowalke in both ways, morbidly disturbing or honorably respectable. However, some factual evidence that I think would defintely back up the latter would be that his father passed away during World War II when Kowalke was just 3 years old. They don't know exactly where, just that he was fighting somewhere in France. Most likely feeling a sense of duty and rightouesness toward others who have lost friends and family in the war without knowing where they were lost, Kowalke helps them in finding the remains of their loved ones to give them a proper burial. In one case, when Kowalke identified a soldier known by a 92-year-old widow from Berlin, she came "in a wheelchair holding the box of bones that were her husband and saying, 'Oh, Werner, I know where you are. Now, I can have peace,' [Kowalke] knew that what [he] does matters."
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