We all have Perpetrated and Received – Handed Out and Endured Individually and collectively. Some countries carry a huge collective debt or “Schuld” – like Germany – and have to embark on the long journey of reckoning with the horrific unimaginable crimes that were perpetrated. After the Nuremberg trials, Germany was forced (in a "good" and necessary way) into continued cultural introspection and change, reparations and re-envisioning. Not every citizen took it up of course, but over the course of 75 years the culture has changed in deep ways. It took decades of radical and intellectual movements, artists, filmmakers, educators, psychologists, Nazi hunters, demonstrations, violence and killings, and ongoing systemic overhaul. As well as Vergangenheitsarbeit and Trauerarbeit . Both terms describe inner psychological work, the former refers to the past, the latter to grieving. So much denial, shock, numbness, and grief, and especially deep shame and guilt had t...
