Journal Entry 4: What do German's have to come to terms with in history? What do Americans?

There are a lot of things in Germany's past that the country has to come to terms with. An obvious and prominent example of this is World War II and the Holocaust. The old concentration camps such as Dachau serve as a reminder of the crimes committed by the Germans 70 years ago. As we found in our past discussions, most people viewed Germans as strict, serious, and focused. This stereotype seemed to come from World War II, and is a reputation that Germans have to try hard to change or come to terms with and accept. Germans are also burdened with guilt from the Holocaust, even a majority of the people living in Germany today weren't alive during the War. Living in a country were so many people were killed, and still being associated with the Nazi party is a hard history to come to terms with. German people in Berlin also try to come to peace with very recent political unrest, as only 20 years ago the Berlin Wall came down. Such influential events like these are hard for any country to accept and move on from, while still working to maintain history.

The United States definitely has past history that the people still need to come to terms with. A historical event very similar to the Holocaust was the slave trade, in which an entire race was persecuted and exploited. Even though this was a long time ago, evidence of the racism that occured is still prominent in our culture and lifestyle. Americans have to come to terms with their inhumane treatment of Africans in some way because racism is still influential throughout the country. Evidence of World War II was also seen in Germany, such as the concentration camps that are still standing. However, Germany does a good job of coming to terms with their past by opening the camps (such as Dachau) for people to see, and allowing their history to be remembered in the future.