On leaving Meta

“Na/Ne Mädele?” (well girl? or: right, girl?) is a thing my grandfather used to ask me while stroking my cheek with the back of his hand. I grew up in a family full of secrecy. One of my grandparents' upstairs bedrooms had a drawer stuffed to the top with images from the war—tanks and dead bodies stacked beside them on the side of the road—and I had grandparents who refused to speak about any of it. Questions would be diverted to answers such as “We missed each other very much”, regarding my Grandfather at war, or “We were so sick of Turnips” because that’s all they had to eat. Facts reduced to the bare minimum, naked of opinions or anything to go on.

I have, now, after my grandparents’ death, a box filled with pictures of my grandfather in uniform I can never display—they remain secret and in the dark. Shameful. The specific details of lives which remain whispered, at best. One thinks that when a war is over and an empire falls, reflection, education and a change of perspective can happen. Reparation. For some people that work is unwelcome, which is why I learned, when I went to Germany to bury my mother, that my grandmother told my aunts and uncles that “the last thing we need in the family is a jew” when I married—the same non-practicing jew she hosted for a week and smiled at years before I learned this. A smile hiding venom. It makes sense to me now why my mother came to America, the eldest daughter emigrating and devoting her life to working with students from countries and cultures all over the world, of all gender-expressions and sexualities, determined to learn and love everything beautiful her parents would not.

We are here, again, with this hate—now—in this country, and we all have choices to make. I let myself for years believe that my grandfather was merely a German soldier in the war, not naming his uniform for what it was: one he wore proudly in misguided patriotism and resentment. It was a big and devastating moment when I finally owned the fact of my grandparents’ beliefs—or at the very least, If i were to try and be an apologist—their willingness to go along with a deadly and hateful flow.

While not a blameless person, I cannot afford to be an apologist, and I can’t support what this “new” government is planning on and already doing—and those supporting it. Among those, the founder of Meta--nearly two decades of myu photographs and memories be damned. I’ve been thinking of beginning to write along with my photography, so If you’re into navel-gazing, please join me.

The best thing my Grandfather ever gave me (aside from my mother!) was the phrase I repeat in my head when I have a choice to make. So: Na Mädele? Off I go.