This is the image of America I grew up with: The Americans, the friends who have been kind to our parents! Would be nice to look at such an America again…..
Maria (Germany)
Ayya Anopama
Just a few days before the end of the war, the tiny village of my parents in South Germany was attacked by bombs, half of the village burned down. My mother was 7 years old at the time, my father 9. American soldiers entered the village, searching for German soldiers to take them hostage, yet what they found were the wives and children of those. Some of the soldiers were .Afro-American. As they approached the children, including my mother, they trembled in fear – still under the shock of the attack, but moreover because they have never seen a black man before.
Standing in front, prepared for anything terrible to happen, the black soldier opened his pocket and out came a bar of chocolate which he kindly offered the children – to their amazement as chocolate was a rarity, moreover in times of war. A moment in time, of kindness and compassion – in midst the despair of a devastating war -. a moment of friendship and of hope. My mother remembered the kind black man ever since and chocolate became a very special thing for all of us.
As I’m writing these lines, I’m carrying stacks of chocolates in my hand luggage to India and Burma – to offer to traumatized Tibetan nuns and children who have managed to escape from the Chinese to Northern India and to the the countless little nuns living in poverty in under-resourced nunneries in Upper Burma -to offer a moment of joy, of friendship and care.
Ayya Anopama
vimalasari
Thank you so much for sharing Ayya! That is just beautiful.
vimalasari
Bhante Sujato replied:
Ahh, chocolate, the universal language! No really, it’s the word found most widely in the world’s languages.
Sabbamitta
Yes, chocolate! My father – he was 13 at the time – said this was the first time ever they saw chocolate! And his younger brother, 5 or 6 years old, stole some eggs from the Americans. And they just let him do. There are many such stories…. And this was not a government that decided something like a marshal plan on an administrative level, but this were all individuals, just people – which makes it so touching!
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This is the image of America I grew up with: The Americans, the friends who have been kind to our parents! Would be nice to look at such an America again…..
Maria (Germany)
Just a few days before the end of the war, the tiny village of my parents in South Germany was attacked by bombs, half of the village burned down. My mother was 7 years old at the time, my father 9. American soldiers entered the village, searching for German soldiers to take them hostage, yet what they found were the wives and children of those. Some of the soldiers were .Afro-American. As they approached the children, including my mother, they trembled in fear – still under the shock of the attack, but moreover because they have never seen a black man before.
Standing in front, prepared for anything terrible to happen, the black soldier opened his pocket and out came a bar of chocolate which he kindly offered the children – to their amazement as chocolate was a rarity, moreover in times of war. A moment in time, of kindness and compassion – in midst the despair of a devastating war -. a moment of friendship and of hope. My mother remembered the kind black man ever since and chocolate became a very special thing for all of us.
As I’m writing these lines, I’m carrying stacks of chocolates in my hand luggage to India and Burma – to offer to traumatized Tibetan nuns and children who have managed to escape from the Chinese to Northern India and to the the countless little nuns living in poverty in under-resourced nunneries in Upper Burma -to offer a moment of joy, of friendship and care.
Ayya Anopama
Thank you so much for sharing Ayya! That is just beautiful.
Bhante Sujato replied:
Ahh, chocolate, the universal language! No really, it’s the word found most widely in the world’s languages.
Yes, chocolate! My father – he was 13 at the time – said this was the first time ever they saw chocolate! And his younger brother, 5 or 6 years old, stole some eggs from the Americans. And they just let him do. There are many such stories…. And this was not a government that decided something like a marshal plan on an administrative level, but this were all individuals, just people – which makes it so touching!