Preface to Blind Love: Fascism, Then & Now
- Lavavoth
- Sep 8, 2017
- 5 min read
Although the ending to this skit with its privileged air of complacency is disappointing, it still taps into the pulse of what many of us were feeling----despondence and the paralysis of shock.
The accounts in these pages—along with my rage and relentless fixation on the war—didn’t emerge overnight. But everything came to a head on Election Day.
This book has been years in the making, shaped by countless twists and turns that have mirrored the most defining moments of both my current and past life. The characters' names have changed as often as the plot. Over time, my writing and artistic style have evolved into what they are today. Along the way, I’ve immersed myself in the depths of World War II history.
The accounts in these pages—along with my rage and relentless fixation on the war—didn’t emerge overnight. But everything came to a head on Election Day. The political tide had turned for the worse.
Then, despite hours of prayer and ritual to alter destiny, Inauguration Day arrived. Many of us grieved together, stunned and hollowed out by shock. In the weeks after Election Day, I numbed myself with edibles, secretly “sheet-caking” multiple times a week. Then, one evening—nearly blitzed—it hit me: this incompetent and narcissistic leader could destroy humanity.
Once again, I find myself on the wrong side of history, the echoes unsettlingly familiar. But this time, I remember the lessons of my past life.
I slip into apocalyptic visions, and suddenly, this terrifying moment is eclipsed by something even more haunting—my own past.
The All-Consuming, Dark Obsession
Like many Germans of that time, I drank in German pride as liberally as Jägermeister, swallowing more indoctrination than my daily intake of Pervitin.
My past life in Germany is never far from my thoughts—an all-consuming, dark obsession. The antidepressant was supposed to quiet it, but instead, it only gave it structure. Science reduces it to pathology or neurology, or both—a misfiring in the brain, a schizotypal disposition, a tireless attempt to label the unexplainable away.
I don’t stop. Book after book, documentary after documentary. I buy the photographs—real ones, the kind that shouldn’t still exist [1]. I follow the trail down, deep into the machinery of a history that devoured itself. I want to know how a country built on brilliance could turn into something so despicable and unrecognizable.
Nazi Germany doesn’t offer answers. It fragments them. What remains is part puzzle, part warning—less a lesson, more a rupture you carry. Some things you learn too fast. Others, too late.
Like many Germans of that time, I drank in German pride as liberally as Jägermeister, swallowing more indoctrination than my daily housewifery intake of Pervitin. Or so I say now, with the kind of retroactive sarcasm that makes memory easier to carry.
I was a civilian female in her late 40s to early 50s—a National Socialist who believed I was right. I resided in a German city, I don't know which. Hans, too, keeps these details hidden from me. At times, he can be as indecipherable as an Enigma machine—not to hurt me, but to keep me safe. Ignorance is bliss, but, eventually, all is revealed.
What I do know is that Hamburg causes a visceral reaction. I’ve had visions and dreams of living there as well. Similarly, I’ve had strong feelings for Dresden, although not as loaded—I mourn for the city itself. Once upon a time, Dresden had been mythically beautiful.
Trauma from Another Dimension
This event unleashed something catastrophic within me. Suddenly, planes flying overhead became missiles, aiming straight at me.
On December 21, 1988, Pan Am Flight 103 exploded over Lockerbie, Scotland raining down engine parts and chunks of fuselage on the unsuspecting town. This event unleashed something catastrophic within me. Suddenly, planes flying overhead became missiles, aiming straight at me.
I saw a psychiatrist a few times.
His remedy for my 'phobia' was a nightlight, based on the logic that monsters stay away from the light. They didn’t.
In 2010, not too long after officially meeting Hans, visions of dying in an air raid slowly hijacked my mind. I can see it pretty clearly. I'm in a flat, several stories up. The space has a natural feel. A small houseplant sitting here and there. It’s a clean space. Nearly spartan. I'm cowering under a kitchen table. There's nowhere to run.
The bombs keep falling. Closer and closer they get. Until…
My vision cuts away as the incendiary bomb hits the building. I return to my skin, a little more dead than before. This event is wedged somewhere in my DNA. My memories are marred, my soul scarred. Remembering the event is horrifying, but also a relief. At least it offers an answer to my phobia.
We're All Complicit in This
This isn’t a “melting pot” of individuals. Nothing is coalescing.
America as a nation needs to take a good look at what is happening in our own backyard. We’re all complicit in this. We’ve inherited this darkness as well as contributed to the problem, be it through complacency, escape, denial, and/or hatred. This isn’t a “melting pot” of individuals. Nothing is coalescing.
We have to remember our history of conquest, slaughter and hatred. We’re still slaughtering and lynching!
We need to take responsibility and be held accountable. Our collapse is fully justified.
Once upon time, and in spite of our history, we were a part of an Allied movement to stomp out fascism, then, through Operation Paperclip, we adopted high ranking Nazis officers into our military. We took their rules of engagement and perfected the machine.
It’s no secret, reality sucks. We suck. We take up space and destroy everything with our greed and desire. The planet dies a little more each day.
More than a Creative Outlet
Blind Love is a twisted Norse mythologically-inspired tale brimmed with contradictions, hypocrisy, inter-dimensional travel, people fornicating with ghosts, robots hooking up with trees. Everyone is on some kind of mind-altering substance.
During the evenings, I plunge into a darker space, co-creating my writing and artwork with the ghosts of soldiers who offer multi-sensory snippets of their experiences during war.
Blind Love (During the Madness) is more than a creative outlet where I explore my pain, shame, and anger of my past and present lives. It’s a form of escape and confrontation---it's an illustrated novel designed to mimic the protagonist’s visual diary. There are Gothed-out, “Nazi-heartthrobs” conquering a dystopian, post-apocalyptic Earth. Most of the time they seem preoccupied with raping and manipulating Odin’s best battalion of Valkyries. Blind Love is a twisted Norse mythologically-inspired tale brimmed with contradictions, hypocrisy, inter-dimensional travel, people fornicating with ghosts, robots hooking up with trees. Everyone is on some kind of mind-altering substance. Most of the characters are self-absorbed. Some are disenchanted to the point of complacency. A few are good.
Dark as it is, I prefer the company of ghosts who’ve gone to hell and back. They impart valuable lessons. They get it. They’re transparent (literally and metaphorically). They observe our current state of affairs with sadness—they comprehend this darkness better than we ever could. Hindsight is 20/20.
Will we ever learn? Or will we plunge deeper into the abyss?
Note
[1] This is just one area of photography that I collect.
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