Finally!

[jackshoegazer]

The First World War will officially end on Sunday, 92 years after the guns fell silent, when Germany makes the final payment of £59.5 million, the last chunk of reparations imposed on it by the Allies in the Treaty of Versailles in 1919.

Comments

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

And it's not quite like it's like slavery reparations - it's not like you benefited from the actions of your grandparents. Whereas even abolitionists, it could be argued, benefited from the exploitation of slave labor. (For instance, they may not have owned slaves, but I highly doubt they did not purchase textiles made of cotton harvested from southern plantations.)

I am constantly reminded of that Faulkner quote: The past is not dead, it is not even past.

[tyskkvinna.livejournal.com]

Exactly. It is in fact fairly easy to argue that the actions of the Holocaust hurt us rather than gave us any benefit -- We lost a LOT of very productive members of society, especially those that fled to the US and then worked against us. There really wasn't anything that made a positive impact from it, so today we have no benefits that could have possibly been reaped.

However, argue this with one of the groups that lost so many people in the Holocaust and they jump up to remind you about how many terrible things were done to the people who died. Which is frustrating to me.

[jackshoegazer.livejournal.com]

I suppose that's a downside to nations. They live longer than their constituent elements. By being a member of said nation, you inherit the karmic weight of its past decisions, regardless of your own feelings, beliefs, or participation.

[tyskkvinna.livejournal.com]

Excellently put.

[un-crayon-rouge.livejournal.com]

*nods emphatically* This.