On 11/21/05, Frank Pohlmann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > political speech - and justifiably so, I might add - > has a rather different texture in Central Europe. In > Europe, silence means consent. Denial of the obvious > means endorsement of the same.
My wife and I, and a couple of friends, spent ten days travelling through Austria in October. What really struck us was that while museums and guides discussed Austrian history from the 12th century to the 19th in great detail, they skipped over the second world war rather quickly. What little I saw or read of Austria in WWII presented Austria as the first victim of Nazi expansionism, instead of the Anschluss being welcomed by most Austrians. Even young Austrians seem to be wary. We got into a free-ranging discussion in a bar in Rust. When I started talking about WWII, our Austrian companions quickly changed the topic. I'd say WWII and Nazism are very touchy topics there. But in Austria, silence is a way to avoid digging up an unsavoury past. They haven't confronted it like the Germans have. Or so it seemed to me. Ram
