The man shared that he was nearly eighty years old but did not expect to live much longer. Kansas told this ojii-san that he was still very young.
Kansas explained that his own obaa-chan or "little old grandmother" had gotten remarried at the age of eighty. She was now 90 years-old, and she was still together with the new husband. Kansas also again promised to come back to Iwakuni in the future, visit and chat with the elderly man again some time: "Perhaps in a decade, I will come right-back here looking for you under this tree in front of your restaurant."
The old man nodded and replied, "Hai, wakarimashita."
Tomie's Ojii-san was still continuing to try and tell his story of his life in China and Japan during the Great War, "For nearly ... six months ... I ... had ... continued to suffer from ... malaria in ... China. I ... almost died ... before ... I was sent back to ... Niigata Prefecture in ... Japan ... where he had ... been born ... and ... raised. When ... I became healthier I was ... put in charge of teaching students in ... high schools ... throughout ... the region the ... martial art of kendo ... even at Itoigawa Shoko....
Kansas thought, "Itoigawa Shoko, the city's technical high school, was one of the high schools I have been teaching at for Niigata Prefectural Board of Education, too. I knew, as well, that when the occupying powers had originally come to Japan in the late 1940s, they had quickly banned kendo and all martial arts being taught as it had been popularly claimed that martial arts education and training had been intrinsically tied to the militarism of Japan in the decades leading-up-to and throughout WWII. With this knowledge, I did not lose sight of the fact at all that this very Ojii-san of mine had been teaching the art of Kendo to students right-up-through the end of WWII here in Itoigawa. I certainly wanted to ask more about this practice of kendo and what the symbolism or significance was of this martial art in both today's democratic-Japan and in the one-time the former undemocratic- or imperial- Japan as part of the education of Japanese youth-like himself in the 1930s."
Kansas continued, "Still deeply frustrated with my inability to follow more closely what Ojii-san was telling me, my mind soon recalled other meetings with other older individuals whom I had known in Europe previously. Specifically, my mind focused on an encounter in Germany with the father of a friend of mine, Monika Thoelking, which had occurred on her family farm north of Cloppenburg one Christmas holiday period in the late 1980s. That particular afternoon, I had gone out for a walk around that north German farm with Herr Thoelking. As we walked around his farmstead, we chatted about his traveling in both America and Germany as well as about Americans he had known in both places."
"Herr Thoelking mentioned, then, that he had learned to know many more British soldiers after the war, especially as he himself had been imprisoned for many months at the end of the war in the British-occupied sector. Therefore, Herr Thoelking had explained, I came to speak a bit more British English than American English. Herr Thoelking proudly also shared that he had gathered a huge English language vocabulary over the years as he had also tried to read many novels in English."
Kansas remarked to Herr Thoelking that he was surprised to hear that the father of his friend, Monika, had been in prison in and after WWII. He then asked Herr Thoelking to tell him more. "So, Herr Thoelking added that he had been released from British prison camps in early autumn 1945. At that point--as the post-war living conditions for the many post-war survivors all around (outside of the U.S.) that same year, the local German population was on the verge of total starvation and the few crops on-hand needed to be harvested. Finally, the Allied forces relented and agree that it would certainly be good and proper if all those German-soldier-war prisoners with farming experience and who-had-not-been-guilty-of-any-war-crimes, would be released in order to get the potato harvest in before winter. That is why Herr Thoelking and many of his Cloppenburg friends from the German army, who had managed to survive the war, were released from allied prisons in September 1945 to go help their families and their neighbors with the various autumn harvests on their local north German farms."
Kansas explained, "Hitler had both had a special appreciation for- and had received great political support from farmers. Therefore, Hitler had allowed the oldest sons of farmers to stay near their families homes as soldiers during WWII. This had been why Herr Thoelking had been stationed near Cloppenburg, his hometown, during the Second World War."
"However, Herr Thoelking noted that he had also been in prison under Hitler. Herr Thoelking noted that two summers earlier, in 1943, as news of Italy's Surrender to the Allied forces arrived in Germany, Soldier Thoelking had made the mistake of openly speaking his feelings. He was upset, young and brash. Herr Thoelking had muttered loudly for all his comrades to hear, 'Das wird wohl das Ende sein!' or 'That's it. That's the end. It's over!'"
"Immediately, one German officer had had Herr Thoelking arrested, and court-martial proceedings were begun against him for Herr Thoelking's ostensibly having uttered treasonous statements about the future of the Fatherland. Luckily, as he was the elder son of a local farmer, he was imprisoned near his home in Cloppenburg. Soon, with the help of friends in the military nearby and with help of a local judge who-already-knew-his-family intervention in his case was successful. Eventually, the charges against her Thoelking were soon dropped. He was then released but had to continue serving on local military patrols till the Allied forces arrived in Northern Germany and capture his unit over a full-year later."
Kansas shared, "Later that same day, I talked about what I had learned from Monika's father, Herr Thoelking, and about his life in prison during- and after WWII. It became immediately clear to me that Monika had hardly ever broached the topic with her parent. When I had finished sharing these stories, she looked at me and admitted with surprise that she hadn't even known that her father had been in prison even once--during or after the war."
Thoughtfully, Kansas shared of his own experiences over time on three continents dealing with WWII, "Most people don't like to ask about skeletons in their family's closet. After WWII the silence over the Nazi-era had been particularly strong in post-war Germany, Austria, and Japan. However, American soldiers coming home from WWI and WWII, too, were of the mold where they did not talk in detail--except to their comrades in arms--about what they had seen, done or experienced during those violent and tumultuous years. For example, many Americans did, in fact, come home from Germany and Japan shell-shocked, but in those days, they were expected by society to be tough men and get-over-it-all."
"Wakarimashita?"
This poster states: "Through the lanes we pull our carts begging for food; for this we thank the NAZI Reich."
This is prison German soldiers at end of WWII.
