Die wunderbare @EFDavies ist gerade in Lwiw und hat dort am Rande eines Literaturfestivals einen großartigen Text geschrieben: Germany, Ukraine, and the Fall of Communism in Europe. Witnessing the Day of Germany Unity from Ukraine as a German felt... just bizarre. Daraus zitiere 
2/ ich eine Passage, die mich besonders beeindruckte: When speaking in Dresden in Eastern Germany in May 2024 I witnessed a telling exchange between an East German and a Ukrainian, both roughly the same generation, both had lived in a dictatorship. The German had obviously been
3/angered by what I had said on the podium - that Germany must deliver more weapons to Ukraine. “Why can’t they (i.e. Russians and Ukrainians)just stop fighting? Like we (presumably Eastern and Western Germans) did in 1990?”“That is a question for Vladimir Putin,” I snapped back.
4/“Russia is responsible for this war, it could stop any time and the war would be over.” This was the point at which a Ukrainian gentleman from the audience got involved, whom I knew to be Ihor Zhaloba, a history professor from Chernivtsi who had gone to the front after the full
5/-scale invasion (aged 58) and became well-known for continuing to give his lectures to students from the trenches at the front on-line. “We will not lay down our weapons.” he declared to the cheers of other Ukrainians (and Germans) in the audience. “We are fighting for our
6/freedom, our democracy, we are fighting for a future for our children in freedom and dignity.” He continued: “I am so glad that we Ukrainians did not have a West Germany to support us. I am so glad that we did not get any Willkommensgeld (“Welcome money” given to East Germans
7/who came to Western Germany), because it helped us to understand the value of freedom and democracy. We understood that it does not come for free, you have to fight for it, protect it.”
Before I left for the poetry reading in Lviv today, I went to a restaurant at Rynok Square.
Before I left for the poetry reading in Lviv today, I went to a restaurant at Rynok Square.
8/The waiter complimented me on my “lovely” Ukrainian (which I liked) and asked where I came from. From Germany, I replied. Oh, he said, Germany! How nice! You are very welcome! I did not feel like I deserved such a reaction." substack.com/home/post/p-14…
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