My prologue to the German Guilt article was cut off (!?) Here it is.

This -- the guilt of Germans re WW2 -- is broadly interesting.  Many in this country had relatives who suffered grievously, often lethally, at the hands of the Nazis.  Others had relatives who fought, often died, in the European theatre.  Both Eldri and I remain wary of "Germans" in the abstract sense but find ourselves making exceptions for some individual German nationals. We are also aware that there were some Germans who fought the Nazis and were killed or imprisoned.  Eldri is Finnish, Saami, Scandinavian -- and very much aware of what happened in Norway.  Although I have a few close German speaking relatives and ancestors, they are/were Swiss -- but I'm certainly aware of the racial/ethnic and other atrocities of Germany.

Much closer to us is the question of "forgiving" in the "post-war" era -- figuratively and literally -- old Dixie adversaries.  We've been pretty open to that -- if it's reasonably clear the individual involved has been in the process of positive change on racial issues.  (Having read the great fantasy, GWTW, as a child -- and viewed the flick many times -- I've always had some sense of the "mind of the Old South."  Besides, General W.T. Sherman was also extremely anti-Native in thought and conduct.)  I zealously and venomously hated a certain white Mississippi family for seven years -- 1963-1970 -- but then we all publicly "buried the hatchet."  They had changed much for the better and I'd grown up a little more.  H.


HUNTER GRAY [HUNTER BEAR/JOHN R SALTER JR] Mi'kmaq /St. Francis 
Abenaki/St. Regis Mohawk 
Member, National Writers Union AFL-CIO
www.hunterbear.org 
(much social justice material)

See the new and expanded/updated edition of my "Organizer's 
Book." It's the inside story of the massive Jackson Movement,
bloody repression and murder, and more -- including a myriad
of organizing "lessons."  And with my new and 10,000 word
Introduction. http://hunterbear.org/jackson.htm (". .a local activist's
 important account of the deleterious effects the involvement of 
national organizations can have on indigenous protest movements."
David Garrow in "The Age of the Unheralded", Progressive Magazine,
April 1990.

See my piece ON BEING A MILITANT AND RADICAL
ORGANIZER -- AND AN EFFECTIVE ONE:
http://crmvet.org/comm/hunter1.htm

The Stormy Adoption of an Indian Child [My Father]:
http://hunterbear.org/James%20and%20Salter%20and%20Dad.htm
(Expanded in 2012. Photos. Material on our Native
background.)