Jan Ceklarz: You have come to Rabka, more than 60 years after the terrible events that took place here to speak about reconciliation. Are such efforts still necessary? Hasn’t enough been said and done from the time WWII ended until now?

Werner Oder: Whatever has been said and done is not enough to learn the lessons from the past and thereby change the future. More has to be done in the area of politics to determine the response of the nations.

JC:  You have spoken about the need for Austria to deal with its history and responsibility for their part in WWII. There were Austrian Nazis, war criminals, who were given honor and important positions in Austrian society after the war. They weren’t brought to justice for their crimes. On the other hand as Hannah Arendt claims (…) young Germans often mainifest their histeric outbursts of guilt of their forefathers and instead of facing the very real problems they fall into cheap sentimentalism . What should real “reconciliation” look like? What should it be based on?

WO: After the war, Austria was considered the ‘National Park for Nazi War Criminals’. Very few mass murderers were brought to justice. Those who did end up in court received very lenient sentences. Typical example were the two Ukrainian brothers Wilhelm and Johann Mauer (‘Kameraden’ of my father in Rabka), who took part in Rabka killings and the massacre of 12 000 Jews in Stanislavow. In their first trial they were found not guilty. After their second trial, though they got 8-12 years imprisonment, they were released after a few months without explanation!

Some people may say that German condemnation of their forefathers was cheap sentimentalism; at least there was condemnation in the public arena. Austria, on the other hand, to this day, with few exceptions, never faced up to the fact that it was Austria, led by an Austrian, which perpetuated the holocaust and refused to accept responsibility for crimes against humanity.

Reconciliation is a difficult subject. It must go further than cheap sentimentalism. Real reconciliation begins with and can only be promoted through true Christian teaching which emphasizes that God created all men equal: the black man has the same value as the white man, Aryans are no better than the Jews, Austrians are not better than the Poles etc. It is only when we teach that God created all men in His image, that we can teach people to respect, accept and honour one another.

JC: A French sociologist Maurice Holbwachs once said that “ What we remember from the past determines what our problems are today.” What are today’s problems in Austria and Germany in the context of memories from WWII?

WO: The problems in Austria and Germany are the problems of Europe, where the nations have not learned the lessons of the past. Forgetting (or brushing under the carpet) one of the greatest tragedies of the 20 &21st century (holocaust) is resulting in the re-emergence of Neo Naziism and International Anti-Semitsm. We are faced with the strange paradox of speaking and reading about Nazi Germany in the media on the one hand, while observing the international animosity toward Israel on the other hand. The cynics say: History is a proof that a man has learned nothing from history.

JC: You’ve spoken of you father as one who brought evil into his home. Please tell us what he was like as a person and what happened to him after the war.

WO: After survivors from Rabka reported him to Simon Wiesenthal and the Austrian police, he was arrested and sentenced to 6 months ‘hard labour’, which meant that he was given a secretarial job in an open prison!

During his trial, the Polish government applied for his extradition which was effectively blocked by the ODESSA (are you familiar with this organization?)

After his release in 1952, he moved in with mother. He was violent, cold and largely irresponsible. Unable to hold down a job to provide for his family, he reveled in the ‘honour’ with which he was treated. He left us in 1955 and moved in with another woman.

By 1968-69 Wiesenthal had collected new evidence against him. Upon receiving his court summons in 1970, his heart failed him. He died and was buried in an unmarked grave.0

JC: The Odessa organization is well known but if you have closer, more personal experience with them could you please tell us about it?

WO: Since the majority of Austrians were sympathetic with Hitler, they were also sympathetic toward their 'heroes' whom the Americans, Jews and British 'unfairly' called criminals.Family members, neighbours, friends, teachers, priests, lawyers, policemen, famers, housewives did al they could to conceal the facts and hide the truth. A family ODESSA member helped to get my father released from jail. The Catholic priest Aloys Hudal used the offerings from his Church to finance the escape route of Nazi War criminals. The housewife who was secretary to Wilhelm Rosenbaum at the Rabka school defended my father in court, after arranging secret meetings with another ODESSA members in the mountains of Austria.

I knew about the ODESSA from childhood, as DIE SPINNE (the spider), a codename given to this organisation which was like a huge spidersweb of conspiracy, spanning from Argentina to Spain, Italy, Germany etc. (The whole story is mentioned in my latest book BATTLING NAZI DEMONS).

JC: Did your father ever talk about what he did during the war? Or did he talk about where he lived during the war, about Rabka?

WO: Never

JC: Please tell us about you meetings with survivors of the holocaust. In what kinds of situations did you meet them? What kinds of barriers did you have to break through to communicate with them? What were the effects of these meetings?

WO: The difficulties are twofold:

• It is always difficult for holocaust survivors to meet someone like me, who represents to them everything they associate with evil. Many of them are fluent in German, but have never spoken in German and would not want anyone to speak German to them.

• It is always difficult for me to meet those who were so badly treated by ‘my nation’. I see and sometimes actually feel their suffering. I find it hard not to get too emotional.

The thing that breaks through these barriers is the Love I have for the survivors and this is what melts their hearts. In many cases I would be allowed to take them into my arms, many of them then just cry. In most cases we would part as friends, with genuine invitations to see them again if I’m in the area. This never fails to amaze me, it’s a true miracle from God; this is true reconciliation.

JC: You have spoken of your experiences of the destructive power of evil, that it even has demonic power. Hannah Arendt also spoke of the destructive power of evil. Her opinion changed later however, during the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem. She wrote; “Its true that I now believe that evil isn’t something “radical” and is only something at the surface level. It doesn’t run deep and isn’t inspired by something “demonic”. It can fill the whole earth and bring great destruction, like mushrooms springing up when the conditions are right. But it can never go deep, to the roots. Only good can come from the depths and be something “radical”. What is your opinion about her statement?

WO: As a political theorist Hannah Arendt’s statement shows her confusion over the gravity of evil that has destroyed her people. In an answer to the question I ask: How can an evil such as the National Socialism of Nazi German, which almost ‘filled the whole earth’, murdered six million Jews, destroyed culture and civilization, be considered as ‘something at the surface level?’ How can the genocide of Rwanda, Sudan or Bosnia be seen as something that ‘can never go deep’? Evil such as this is nothing less than demonic, inspired by hell itself. I fail to see how ‘only good can come from the depths of such evil?

The plaque fixed on the wall of the little junior high school Adolf Hitler attended in 1895, (a few miles from my own home town in Austria) says: “ He brought nothing good but death and destruction to millions.”

JC: Isn't it frightening to think about evil as being at the "surface level"? Arendt said; "The crimes of WWII were committed, in the greatest part, by regular people, who in other circumstances, probably would have led a normal life. She warns that lack of reflection, laziness and giving in to evil and lies can have catastrophic results.

WO: The best way to confront one's fear is to face reality. To imagine evil as being somewhere deep, far away etc. will result in great consternation when it surfaces in our next door neighbour, even our brother. The slogan of the „Wisła” football fanatics is, (many of whom are Neo Nazis): Today an enemy, yesterday a brother. Yesterday they were brothers, today they were enemies, just as it was during the Nazi era. Arendt's observation reflects Edmund Burke's saying: 'evil prospers when good men do nothing.' The issue is not whether evil is at surface level or deeply hidden, the issue is that those who are concerend must find a way of resisting it, no matter at which level.

Jan Ceklarz
Cultural Avenue Association
Translated by Dough Groth