Primo

"Devo dire che l'esperienza di Auschwitz è stata tale per me da spazzare qualsiasi resto di educazione religiosa che pure ho avuto. C'è Auschwitz, dunque non può esserci Dio. Non trovo una soluzione al dilemma. La cerco, ma non la trovo."

Voi che vivete sicuri
nelle vostre tiepide case,
voi che trovate tornando a sera
il cibo caldo e visi amici:
Considerate se questo è un uomo
che lavora nel fango
che non conosce pace
che lotta per mezzo pane
che muore per un si o per un no.
Considerate se questa è una donna,
senza capelli e senza nome
senza più forza di ricordare
vuoti gli occhi e freddo il grembo
come una rana d'inverno.
Meditate che questo è stato:
vi comando queste parole.
Scolpitele nel vostro cuore
stando in casa andando per via,
coricandovi, alzandovi.
Ripetetele ai vostri figli.
O vi si sfaccia la casa,
la malattia vi impedisca,
i vostri nati torcano il viso da voi.

bERlin

Today I'm leaving.

You know those cities that you always heard of and you promised yourself that one day you would have gone there. I have lots of them. Many in Europe and a few around the world.

And today I'm going there. I've already been there, but for another reason. At that time that was not the reason of my trip. And I hope I'll be able to love the city independently of him.

It's a city. And I want to overlap my image of that city with new meanings. The first trip with this friend, just the two of us. What this city represented in the history of XX century. What this city represents to the Germans nowadays.

History

If one should sum up in a few lines these last 15 years of Italian political history, one could say the following:

the dearest friend of one of the leaders who symbolized corruption of the political elite in the country became the richest man, the most famous enterpriser, the most loved prime minister, the leader of the most voted party;

the secretary of the ex-neofascist party became president of the Chamber of Deputies, third most important political position in the country;

one of the directors of the same party was elected as Mayor of the capital city;

the opposition was democratically dismantled and was given the task to self-destroy;

the last directors of what once had been the largest Communist party in Western Europe let spontaneously the leadership to a man of the Christian Democracy, their historical opponent;

the remaining of the left wing divided so many times that it finally reached microscopic dimensions;

its heritage was collected mainly by one judge;

in the meantime in all the country the phenomenon of patrols spread.

But what came after is the most scaring part.

(Giovanni De Mauro, Internazionale, February 27th, 2009, freely translated)

Bonn-Bonns

Some weeks ago I was in Bonn, the ex capital city of West Germany. There you can visit for free the House of history, telling the history of Germany after the Second World War. The most exciting part was about the fall of that wall.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmNR-AtnGQs&feature=related

All those people passing under the Brandenburger Tor, celebrating the re-union of the country. That came when nobody was expecting that to happen anymore.

...why did Germans stop celebrating?