Contemplating the question as to why the profound suffering of German civilians, especially toward and immediately after the end of WWII left so few traces in collective consciousness, requires something next to impossible- untangling a multilayered, complex and politicized fabric of historical narratives. My own historical narrative is a layer of this fabric as well. I was brought up in the Netherlands, though I now live and work in Canada. The German occupation and its consequences had its impact on my family, as it had on most, if not all Dutch families. Yet the stories they conveyed were only one thread in the fabric of that particular history as I came to know it. The communal stories with which I grew up were just as, or even more, powerful. And these stories painted a picture a bit more flattering than the Dutch could really claim credit for. This is not uncommon, however- collective memory can be distorted to provide positive images of the in-group, and negative images of the out-group (see also Baumeister and Hastings as cited in Oppenheimer & Hakfoort, 2003). You might think that after six decades, this tendency toward collective self-deception would have worn out, but this is not necessarily so.
Two examples: First, the annual international four-day march in Nijmegen, the town where I grew up. In this event, the German units never march in time because the Dutch "get sick upon hearing marching Germans" (Oppenheimer & Hakfoort, p. 102).
A second noteworthy example is the story of the bike. Soccer matches between Germany and the Netherlands are often an occasion for outbursts of animosity. Without fail, banners are seen at these matches displaying the text: "I want my bike back," referring to the confiscation of bicycles and other objects that were recycled into warfare machinery toward the end of the war. Prince Claus, late husband of Dutch queen Beatrix, argues that we should understand these feelings "ironically, based on a cliché or stereotyped phrase." Dutch children respond, when asked why they dislike the Germans: "They stole my grandfather's bicycle" (the late Prince Claus, as cited in Oppenheimer & Hakfoort, p. 102). The story of the bike has transformed into a national epos, and feelings related to loss of a bike are understood, experienced, and felt by each generation as if it happened today (Oppenhauer & Hakfoort, 2003).
These examples are illustrative of how collective memory can be distorted to provide more positive images of the in-group than reality supports. The fact that there were many incidents of collaboration with Nazi occupiers (some historians estimate for example, that around 22,000 Dutch volunteers served in the German SS units- relatively the highest number of non-German volunteers to serve in German troops in Europe) is suppressed in favor of heroic stories of Dutch resistance to the German occupation in the World War II continues to live on (see also Visser, 2002).
References
Oppenheimer, L. & Hakfoort, I. (2003). Will the Germans ever be forgiven? Memories of the Second World War four generations later. In E. Cairns, & M. D. Roe. (Eds.), The role of memory in ethnic conflict (pp. 94-103). New York: Palgrave MacMillan.
Visser, R. (2002). Deconstructing the "myth of resistance": The Dutch, the Germans, World War II and an oral history project. In T. S. Poetter, C. Haerr, M. Hayes, C. Higgins, K. Wilson Baptist (Eds.), In(ex)clusion (Re)visioning the democratic ideal. New York: Educator's International Press.
Wever-Rabehl, G. (2005). Liberation from the Future and the Past: Naming and
Mourning the Germans Who Died. European Weekly, June 2005.
Wever-Rabehl, G. (2004). Inside the parrot cage: Dialogues and reflections on history, trauma and memory. Lincoln: IUniverse.
