War says we cannot love, because we are afraid

For most of us, the idea of the entire world being on the verge of war is quite novel. However, my father is an 84-year-old German man, so this is at least his second time around.

The first time did not go well for him.

My father spent many of the first seven years of his life as a refugee. Their family home in East Prussia was in the direct path of the Russian advance on Berlin once the fortunes of the Nazis turned.

The man of the family had not been seen for many years, and would be one of the fortunate ones to return from a Russian prisoner-of-war camp, around 1950. But for now, flight was the only option.

Mutti, the mother, fled with her four children towards Berlin. By train and by foot. My father does not speak of the experience directly, but my uncle told me once that one of his formative childhood memories was of walking in an endless human line of people, and being taught to dive into the roadside ditch if ever he heard the sound of approaching aeroplanes.

But in fact my father does communicate the truth of his wartime trauma.

Whenever we need to travel somewhere – perhaps to visit a restaurant, to make a road trip or to go to the airport, he becomes almost unreasonably upset. He paces; he cajoles; he hurries us.

“Come on,” he says! “We’re going to be late.”

The idea of being late is not so crucial, one would think. What are the stakes, if one is visiting Spur for burgers, or driving to Jeffreys Bay?

I think that for my dad, travel, still today, feels like life or death. To be late, might mean missing the last train to Berlin, or Posen, or whichever refuge. Not planning properly might mean losing track of a child on a station platform. Travel, for refugees, can be terror incarnate.

I find myself carrying some of this generational pain, perhaps. Like my father, I am almost offensively punctual. Invite me to a braai in the remote West Rand, and I will still arrive two minutes before the appointed time, then park sheepishly outside the gate, waiting for the clock to show 2pm, so I can finally text and say please open up.

Something inside me, almost in my cells, says “Don’t Be Late!”

I believe this comes from war.

I have not experienced war. But the feeling of it seems to have come down to me. And our family’s experience must be just a fraction of the horror experienced by millions of other families. Not least the Jewish people whom I will owe a lifelong apology for the shameful deeds of my family and my countrymen.

That responsibility, too, has come down to me. It will never leave. Just as my father’s childhood trauma keeps him terrified of being left behind, even now, as and elderly man.

All I know of war is that it is the basest, most evil thing that humans can do to each other, and that it must be avoided at all costs. Because the Cost of War itself will echo down the generations, for centuries!

It cannot be joked about. Supporting the aggression of an invading army cannot be adopted as a light-hearted, contrarian stance. We cannot “both sides” the idea of starting a war.

That is a false equivalence.

Starting a war is to sentence entire generations to death, or at best a damaged life. An existence where we survive, but fearfully, as less than we might have been.

As long as there is war, humanity cannot become the vest version of itself. There will remain misery and fear and an inability to love freely and boldly and bravely, as we should. War itself says that we cannot love, because we are afraid.

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