Maybe that was part of it, we did not have a big german population, heck, we
only have about 15,000 at all. We do have a chinese group. I had black and
indian and oriental friends as well as white.
  My religion kept me from hating, not caused me to hate. I know lots of
things people said they were doing because of religion really was not what
the religion tought.

-----Original Message-----
From: Trisha Cummings [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Friday, October 11, 2002 12:44 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Question

Hi Ken,

   Well, I am not a descended from German - I am a former German. I became
an American on 4/24/64. As a kid I always got to be the bad guy when we
played - I was the German (LOL), the bandit and the Indian - another chuckle
here as my natural father an American ( I am a love child) was 1/2 American
Indian - which makes me I guess 1/4 Indian. Which may explain my perchant
for nature and the natural beliefs. Did you have immigrants where you lived?
We as American tend to look down on immigrants - todays being the Orientals
and the Hispanics - History shows the Chinese and Irish in the past, etc. If
we could ever get past this distrust of someone from the next village over
the hill - we might have hope.

                                              Trisha

> Well, trish, I may have just have had my head in adark place, but, I am
> nearly 54 and I have never witnessed an incident of a german descended
> person being blamed for what hitler did. And I lived in small town alabama
> where predudice was shown quite freely as I was growing up. Anyway, I am
> glad you have had now 15 years without this going on.
>
>
> Then perhaps you should know Mitsubishi made the engines for thr Japanese
> Kamikazi planes.  And US cars today have engines made by them.  Or we
> could
> remember WWII ended 57 years ago and the people who where there are very
> old
> now ( and some folks like my mother who where forced to become German by
> Hiltler )  and you are directing your hatred towards people who have had
> no
> connection to it at all or had no choice as to their nationality ( like
> me)
> . In doing this you just incur their animosity. This would seem to be
> silly
> to my way of thinking that like holding the genocide the Jews did in Bible
> times against today's Jews. As a former German - I must tell its only been
> maybe 15 years since I have been able to say I was a born German and the
> first words out of someone's mouth aren't - Oh, you are  NAZI. The problem
> with hatred it's directed against the innocence as well as the truly
> involved. I grew up not liking the Jews - becasue the didn't like me - I
> hated being bamed for what happened in WWII - I was born 8 years after the
> war ended - in a refugee home. I had nothing to do with Hitler or the
> Nazi's
> but I have held accountable for there stuff. I can tell you its breeds
> hatred - its on thing to be guilty but a totally other thing to be
> innocent.
> The people who do things should be held accountable - not the innocents -
> or
> everyone should be reviled for something becasue everyone has someone in
> their past who isn't lily white. And on the totally amusing side - I have
> inccurred Alex's Grandmother's wrath becasue I allow Alex to date a Jewish
> boy - and he happens to be the son of a friend of mine and he wants to be
> a
> Rabbi. And I guess Simon gets falack for dating a non-jew.  Can we say
> petty!  There are times when I feel religion was made by the Devil -
> becasue
> it feeds the hatred instead of creating love and better people. Of course
> the ultimate perpetrators are the individuals themselves - we should begin
> to blame individuals after all good and bad are found in everything.
>
>                                    Trisha
>
>
> > I'd no idea until today that Hitler'd had any role in the development of
> > the
> > Volkswagen Beetle.  Not sure I'd have bought my car if I'd known at the
> > time.
> >
> > Kat
> >
> > On Thu, 10 Oct 2002 12:57:08 -0400 Meir Weiss <[log in to unmask]>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Volkes as in folks/ nation
> > >
> > > Wagon/  car
> > >
> > > My father may he r.i.peace
> > >
> > > Was a child  holocaust survivor (orphan)
> > >
> > > For his whole life he refused to buy german
> > > products
> > >
> > > ESP volkeswagon-bmw (bavaria
> > >
> > > Mercedes benz
> > >
> > > All those
> > >
> > > Just fyi  :)