Loving the Least

Though our new placements at the workshops have started, and they fit us well so far, I find myself still processing my experiences with the residence group. One of my favorite characters in Gruppe 4 was simultaneously obvious and shocking. Heinrich is an 87-year-old man. He has a tall but frail frame. His skin, once taught around muscle, sags in countless wrinkles all over his body. Some days he sports a sharp argyle sweater and classic hat, others one worn-out black glove. He slowly makes his way up and down the hallway choosing specific points to stop. He squats down to the ground and pulls his knees into his chest, then bows his head down to rest. A favorite place is just in front of the heater in one of the bathrooms. He is a quiet man, who speaks in muffled strings of incomprehensible words. He spends his days inside the complex depths of his mind, the mind of a schizophrenic. His schizophrenia is a special diagnosis, a result of war*. Heinrich was a Nazi - a sniper, to be exact.

I figured when we moved here that we’d make friends whose grandparents were Nazis or who knew a former Nazi at the least. The Nazis had a way of convincing ordinary people to come over to their side, after all. I did not consider that I might work with one directly. I was taken aback when my coworkers told me. I figured I would want to keep my interactions with him brief, that he would not be a spirit I’d like to be around and that I’d just stick to my job with him, but that plan didn’t work.

As I grew more comfortable around him, I found myself thinking about the beauty of our situation and the fortune time had allowed us. If we’d met not 60 years ago, Heinrich and I could not have graced the same room with assurance. My dad’s family was Jewish; I would have been in hiding. Only two generations later, I was blessed with the opportunity to choose compassion and to coexist with a person I would otherwise demonize.

I suppose his resulting disability made the choice of compassion a little easier. If he were fully cognizant, if we could debate politics and viewpoints, I can’t begin to pretend I would have been courageous. I also didn’t speak the word “Jewish” to him; I didn’t really feel it was necessary to throw that in the mix for him and felt that it would somehow cheapen my own process of finding love. His story attested to the power of reconciliatory love. Before his time as a sniper, Heinrich was a top student who spoke multiple languages and wrote many short stories. His disabilities arose purely from his time as a Nazi, and he moved to Wittekindshof in 1947 at the age of 24. His life in the community is, of course, ironic. Nazis sought to rid the population not only of Jews, but also of many other minority groups, including people with disabilities, as they were considered unable to contribute to society. Yet, their horrid exploitations and acts created the very people they loathed. Today, an ex-Nazi lives in a community once in danger of extermination, and he is cared for unconditionally. That is a healing and powerful love.

It’s a love I knew I had to be a part of to fully embrace my time in the group. One coworker, an older Russian German, gifted me with a book from the 50s. She said it was one of the first that she read when moving here and that she found the language level sufficiently challenging while not overwhelming. She also thought the subject matter would help – it’s about Lewis and Clark and Sacajawea, so she figured I would know the basic story. Well, I decided to start bringing the book to work with me and began asking Heinrich if he would like to hear a story. It was rumored that he enjoyed stories, but I hadn’t seen anyone actually sit down with him to read.

Each day, he seemed more excited to hear the story, until it almost seemed a given part of his day. After finishing in the kitchen or distributing laundry, I’d retrieve my book and find Heinrich squatting against the wall. He’d look up, touch the book, nod solemnly and stand to walk down to our regular seats on the couch. (This walk sometimes lasted as long as the reading itself, as he reached out with his shaking hand to touch every surface, high and low, along the way.) Reading to him became a favorite part of my day, my chance to share and connect with a man instead of alienating him and myself. The reading itself was a simple way to pass the time together, but he gifted me with patience as I occasionally corrected my pronunciation or hopped up to help another resident.

Of course, the subject matter may not have been his favorite – a co-worker once teased Heinrich by telling him I was an American. A fierce scowl spread over his face. Then he burst out laughing and patted my head. In times of clarity, he graced me with a sharp sense of humor. At his cloudiest moments, his gentle touch persisted. He seemed to remain in the world around him through his sense of touch, reaching out to feel all surfaces, all people. I could not approach Heinrich without his hand immediately reaching out to my arm, then face or ear or hair, touching first with his padded fingertips, then flipping his hand over to feel with the backside. His urge to feel things** controlled him, consumed his day, but his touch was one of ironic gentleness.

It was a strange reality to watch this man, once part of a terrifying and powerful regime, live one day to the next in such a fragile state. There’s the prospect of a “serves-him-right” attitude to find in all of this, but I think it’s not so much a stoic karma that I met in Heinrich (though I do believe in karma, in general). I think it was more a lesson in unconditional love. A Nazi taught me about love. Now that’s a crazy sentence.

*It is considered a condition unique from PTSD. In German, it is termed as a type of schizophrenia. I could not find the equivalent diagnosis in English.

**feel things literally, though there’s irony in this, too, that this literal urge arose after being so strongly forced not to feel emotionally.