BARBARA
BackGöttingen - Barbara
My grandfather did not save Jewish children. Nor was he part of the Resistance. No—my grandfather saved the life of a German prisoner. At the end of the war, it had been decided that German prisoners would work on French farms as compensation for the years of forced labor (STO). Like a slave market, the large landowners took first pick. My great-grandfather had had his farm destroyed in the North during the First World War. My grandfather was therefore just a poor tenant farmer, who had moved to the Loiret, and who chose Bastian from among the last emaciated prisoners left in the square. Hatred, revenge, resentment—that is what most French people felt when a German came near. My grandfather and Bastian made the journey back under a barrage of insults, calls for death, hatred without any limits. I don’t know what my grandfather saw in Bastian. A man who had had no choice but to leave his country. A man who did not have the right nationality, did not speak the right language, did not have the right culture. A man who had not chosen this war. A man like him, who simply wanted to live in peace, at home, with his own. Bastian spent his first weeks recovering in my grandmother’s kitchen, rocking my uncle while slowly regaining his strength. Later, he did what he was there to do. Later still, he left. My grandfather did not get up when he heard him leave that night. He did not get up when he came back, bringing the dog that had followed him. He did not get up when Bastian had to tie the animal. Nor did he get up when the dog began to bark. My grandfather did not get up—he gave him his freedom. A few years ago, his youngest daughter, Barbara, returned to France. Like a pilgrimage, she came back to see the farm. The small room at the back of the barn where he had lived. The door behind which he fell asleep every night. Where is the key? … There was no key. … There had never been a key. … Rothko wrote that only suffering and hatred bring people together. He forgot about friendship. But friendship is difficult—you must accept your faults, put yourself in the other’s place, forgive. I have not known war, I have not known the suffering and violence it brings, nor the lives it takes. Of war, I know only this friendship that has lasted for three generations. There are two Barbaras in this painting. Also a rose garden in Göttingen, and the terrace of a large duplex in Munich. There is no accordion like in the original accompaniment, but piano and double bass. There is a great deal of friendship—and also a great deal of peace. The peace one makes with one’s enemies, and the peace one makes with oneself. Original text in French, translated by AI