when I was little, I was obsessed with the idea that shadows, the ones thrown forward from my feet, walking with the sun in my back, were pulling me. they were not attached to me, but I was bound to them. wherever they wanted to go, I had to follow. all my movements and whereabouts were directed by what the shadows wanted to do.

700 and some years ago, up to 30 million people perished here from the black plague. a third of the european continent’s population back then.not even 400 years ago, on the grounds of today’s wider region of german-speaking europe, 15 to 20 million people (up to 45% of the regional population) found their deaths during a 30 year long war. a war fought over territory, wealth, pride, and religion. this war was fought on battlefields where soldiers walked into each other’s blades to the sound of drums. 15 to 20 million people bled out and a great number of them (being mercenaries whose bodies were never picked up) were buried where they died and decayed into the ground of these fields. scientific studies have found that the soil there is still detectably more fertile than the soil of neighboring fields. during the same period and in addition to these dead, alone in what is called germany today, up to 40 thousand (mostly) women have been tortured, decapitated, drowned, hung, and burned on the stake as witches. more than half of all european inquisition’s victims. and only 120 years ago, the german empire murdered up to 90 thousand nama and herero in germany’s colony on the grounds of today’s namibia, committing the first genocide of the 20th century. and between 100 and 80 years ago, more than 90 million people were killed during the two world wars in europe. about 4,5% of the world’s population lost their lives back then.all of these deaths were violent. violent in ways most of us past-war europeans are unable to imagine. endless horrific violence.

now, for soon 15 months, germany—the national state I’m a citizen of and the place where I currently live—has been taking part in just another genocide. with indiscriminate financial, material, political, and moral support for israel. more and more people and other living bodies are killed every minute, their lives, spirits and stories, their future descendants, and all their potentials not only robbed from them and their people but from all of us, from the world. german state politics instrumentalize "german holocaust guilt" as a smoke screen to veil a deeply rooted antisemitism, racism, and arab/islamophobia and use it as justification for their close industrial cooperation with israel on arms development, defense issues, and geopolitical interests. "german-guilt-pride" is a new term that is circulating. germany is proud to "get rid of their holocaust guilt by committing another genocide".

some germans might have learned to feel guilt and shame for the 6 million european jews their grandparents or great-grandparents helped murder. the 15,6 million russian civilians, the 3,6 million polish civilians (in addition to the 3 million polish jews) the up to 500'000 sinti and romai and all the others murdered by germans during the "nazi-times" generally go unmentioned in this german litany of guilt, shame and pretended attempts of redemption. german guilt and shame often lead to helplessness and fear, causing anger, self-righteousness, stubborn white fragility, and the urge for "this guilt and shame to be over". much of germany's official holocaust remembrance culture is not more but an attempt to "close the chapter and the book". how to keep all the books and chapters open instead, how to open those, that are hidden, were secretly closed? our histories do have a pastness. they are a sort of memory-knowledge and are at the same time not past, not memory at all but present in the very moment. and as it appears, this pastness is not even remembered. but is acting out as a presence, able to inform and even shape current events according to its pattern, itself unrecognized.

how to take care of our shadows? how to be in conversation with our ancestors’ spirits? the ghosts of all those who were displaced, killed, and famished? and the ghosts of all those who tortured, deported, murdered, or were complicit in other ways? all of them still lingering, angry, haunting, lost, and wild? how can we satisfy their hunger, clear their confusion, and do them justice so they can finally leave? how to take care of the monsters of violence that want to be fed constantly and everywhere? how to develop methods to end the circles of violence? what to do with inherited and sedimented trauma, fear, rage, and suppressed knowledge of guilt? what to do with shame? how to stop ourselves from constantly repeating and reenacting? how to end violence, coloniality, capitalism, racism, and patriarchy? also within ourselves? work that needs to be done every day. in everything we do or don't do. but first, stop the genocide!

lights fly by. dark outside. driving back from a sunday’s visit with my maternal grandmother in konstanz. 1972. my father, hands on the wheel, eyes on the road. my mother turns around addressing her three children in the back: “listen carefully. should anyone of you ever become a soldier, you would not be part of my family anymore.” turning back. facing the road. no further comment.

my mother, born 1938 in striegau, silesia (now stzegom, poland), was a child refugee during the last three years of ww2. her father was a senior lieutenant

in the german wehrmacht and a nazi and his wife, my grandmother was an enthusiastic follower.

kurt tucholsky died from an overdose of sleeping pills in 1936. “soldaten sind mörder”, he famously wrote, reflecting on his experiences as a soldier during ww1. “for four years there were whole square miles of land where murder was obligatory, while half an hour away it was just as strictly forbidden. did I say murder? of course, murder. soldiers are murderers” he wrote, using the pseudonym ignaz wrobel in 1931 for “die weltbühne”, which he published together with carl von ossiezky.

my mother, evelina, died from an overdose of sleeping pills in 2024, feeling deeply betrayed by the circularity of life’s events and all the broken promises of progress. “it is all a loop. worldwide wars never end. humans are stupid. men are monsters. who lies wins. soldiers are murderers.”