From Under the Same Sky, by Joseph Kim, the memoir of life in North Korea I wrote about a couple days ago:
I started kindergarten that year and met my first school friends — and my first mean kids, too. In North Korea, when you go to school, you aren’t ranked academically, but by your ability to fight. Literally. I can tell you who was the number-one boy in my first-grade class, and the number seven — and the numbers refer to only one thing: how good a battler you are, as judged by your classmates. The schools encouraged this kind of thinking: for example, when a child fails to show up for class, the teacher doesn’t call the parents and ask about the absence (to begin with, there are no phones). Instead, she sends a group of the toughest students to yell at the kid. Sometimes they even beat the boy until he agrees to come back. (p. 10)
From German Boy, by Wolfgang W.E. Samuel, which I’m in the middle of reading now (though I might set this aside, as I just checked out Fiorina’s Tough Choices from the library), recounting the author’s signing up for the Jungvolk (the organization for ages 10 – 13, prior to joining the Hitler Jungend) in April 1945:
“How old are you?” he screamed into my face. I was terrified of him.
“Ten,” I said in a whisper. “I am ten years old.”
“When did you turn ten?” He continued shouting loudldy.
“The second of February.” I knew I was in deep trouble. It was April. He came around the counter and stopped in front of me with anger lighting up his eyes.
“You little swine,” he said in a lowered tone of voice. “Why didn’t you come and register in February when you turned ten? Don’t you like the Hitler Youth? Maybe this little swine doesn’t like us.” He was shouting again, laughing loudly, and mimicking surprise by throwing his arms in the air. My tormentor turned to face his fellow Hitler Youths behind the counter. No one responded to his act. Others were yelling at a pair of unfortunates like me whom I had not seen as I entered.
As he turned back toward me, I quickly said, “I am a Flüchtling [refugee]. I couldn’t register in February. I wasn’t here.”
“Fill out this form,” he said in an almost civil tone of voice, handing me a stubby, dull pencil and a form. . . . As I got to the door and was about to reach for the handle I muttered an embarrassed “Heilitler,” slurring the words as I always had in the past when I used the embarrassing greeting. . . .
A fist smashed into the right side of my head, downward across my face. I fell to my knees on the dirty wooden floor. My nose bled profusely. Blood dripped onto the raw unpainted floorboards. I was both stunned and confused. I got back on my feet and looked around frantically, trying to figure out who had hit me, and raised my arms in front of my face to defend myself against further blows. I was close to tears, but I didn’t cry. I couldn’t let them see me cry, and I wanted out of this awful place. I wanted my mother. Several Hitler Youths gathered around me, shouting and screaming. They had not heard me give the German greeting loudly enough and with sufficient respect for the Führer. (p. 84 ff.)
This is one small scene from the book, which mostly recounts the postwar years, but it fits which another book I read some years ago, which describes the Hitler Youth not in line with the Leni Reifenstahl image of happily marching blond boys, but awash in bullying and brutality.
Now, I don’t have a big point to make, but I was struck by these two passages and thought they merited sharing.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In