I – 17 – living in a lie – shaped by the system

Living in a Lie – shaped by the system – 

I looked at the photograph and said, “It’s unbelievable that the Nazi ideology of a ‘people’s community’ was based on the idea that its progress and happiness were built on the misfortune and ruin of others!” She immediately shot back, “From today’s perspective, you can say that, but back then, you would have gone along with it too.” I looked at her and thought to myself: this statement reveals a lack of moral ethos and uncertainty about who one was or is. And immediately afterward, the question occurred to me: how many people today still operate within that framework of totalitarian rule? And what about us? Are we also shaped by this system?

In the photo right: a decorated ballroom with the banner “The individual is nothing—the people are everything” – one of the core propaganda slogans of the national sozialism – for an event of th NSDAP Party in Germany