I grew up just across the Georgia/Tennessee state line from Chattanooga, Tennessee. In Chattanooga, there is a restaurant with three locations that serves delicious hamburgers, chicken fingers, hoagies, a variety of traditional Mediterranean and Middle Eastern dishes and desserts, and awesome onion rings that have been voted the city's best for several years consecutively. Ankar's Hoagies was started by an Iraqi family who was able to emigrate from their country right before Saddam Hussein's rise to power. This is only one example, but it's a successful story of people who were able to see the writing on the wall. This week in class, we discussed the limited emigration of Jews and non-Nazi Germans right after Hitler came into power, and the larger scale departure by many Germans from Eastern Germany after the end of World War II.
We touched on it in class, but how do people know when to leave their home? I would think a big indicator would be the immigration/emigration ratio. Right now in the US, there are lot more people trying to get in than trying to get out. But when economic and political conditions sour, that could quickly change. Also, the first people to leave in both situations were successful capitalists and the educated classes. These people are in a position to see past the propaganda, have something to lose, and usually work in fields that allow mobility. I would think their example would be a good one to follow. The third main sign that bad times are coming, would be when the government becomes scared enough to enact laws seizing the assets of any citizens who attempt to leave. Basically, you can go, but all you can take is yourself. I would think if that was to happen, it would be a sure sign that things were going to get really bad, and getting out while there was still the option would be the best thing to do.
I know I've oversimplified the decision of leaving your home as well as everything you have and know based on the chance that a totalitarian government comes into power. Hopefully I'll never be faced with that decision, but I almost feel like if things are bad enough for this action to even be a serious consideration, maybe that's the best sign to be safe rather than sorry, and leave while the option still exists.
John, I also have a hard time with the concept of when one should leave everything they have behind, because of what may or may not happen in the future. I can't imagine having to make that decision, or what it would be like to start over somewhere new with absolutely nothing. I can only speculate on what I think I would have done. I agree that when a government starts to enact laws seizing personal property and suppressing individual rights, it's probably time to go. However, I think I would stay if there was a viable resistance movement, or chance of overthrowing the oppresive government. So I guess I really have no idea what I would do until the situation presented itself.
ReplyDeleteI can definitely see what you're saying here. I guess it would kind of boil down to how dangerous of a threat there actually was. I'm sure people weighed their pros and cons, whether it would be worth it to simply drop everything (friends, family, possessions, community) to escape this threat. In this particular case, however, I would have thought also that more East Germans would have jumped ship, especially seeing as it was going to be the RUSSIANS taking power over their side of the country. The Germans despised the Russians and vice versa, and it would seem to me that this mutual fear/hate relationship would have caused more East Germans to flee to the West. Now, I myself have oversimplified, more than likely, but those are my thoughts on it.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that seeing the changes in your own world would be a good thing to help make the decision on whether to leave or not to leave. It would be a very difficult decision to make. A person's life is in a particular area and to just give that all up and leave is a very hard decision to make. I think that the atrocities of WWII were important for later generations to develop an intelligent thought process as to when they should pack up and leave. This 'learning from the past' mentality can only be achieved if it is started early on. We can not wait for people to be in college to learn about the true crimes that were committed in the past.
ReplyDeleteAnother key factor in any such decision is the assumption that people had a place to go. While the East Germans that we read about had a ready, willing and tempting alternative, the Jews of Nazi Germany often found themselves unwelcome since most countries (including our own) were unwilling to accept large numbers of Jewish immigrants. Not all Jews who sought to leave Nazi Germany actually had somewhere to go, adding yet another stain on the history of the West.
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