Guernsey and Leros
View from the 10th century castle on Leros, Greece.
There are only a few books that are composed completely of letters, and one of them happens to be among my favorites (mind you this is a long list): The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Guernsey is a small British island that is actually very close to France, so it was occupied by German soldiers during WWII. Much like the occupation of France and the rest of the European countries during the war, the citizens of Guernsey suffered all kinds of indignities and atrocities under the German soldiers’ occupation, ranging from having their homes overtaken to billet soldiers and officers, to their resources depleted to support the German war machine, to their food supplies taken to feed the German army while they starved, to their lives strictly monitored and controlled, and most brutally, to their women raped. Not unlike Guernsey, my family is from a small island that was also occupied by the German army during WWII, but this island and their experience is lesser known. After enduring 52 straight days of bombing raids and five days of a vicious ground war to take Leros, Greece, the German army first ravaged and then secured its presence on Leros for the last two years of WWII. And they behaved toward the Lerians as they did toward the other places they occupied – abominably.
View of Agia Marina from the Castle
My dad told me of a legend where my great grandparents were just two of their victims on Leros. Because my great grandfather, Papa Markos, was a priest who oversaw all of the schools on the island and he orchestrated the survival of the civilian population during the bombings by making sure everyone knew to seek shelter in the caves, he was dangerous to let live. So they didn’t. Rather, they drug him and my great grandmother behind their tanks through the streets until they were barely alive and then they buried them in one of those caves to die of their injuries – as an example.
This is an example of the caves the people spent almost two months living inside while the German army bombed the island. They are dark, and smell strongly of goat.
This took place in the middle of November, 1943, just after they took control of the island. It is now September, 2024, and I was there to learn all I could about him, his life, and his story. To this end, I was visiting the Merika Tunnel War Time Museum in Lakki, Leros. It is a collection of Italian, British, and German war artifacts, photos, and film of WWII and The Battle of Leros built into a series of tunnels, much like the tunnels the Italian and British soldiers used as headquarters during the battle and the civilians used to take shelter during the 52 days of bombing. And, much like the tunnel where my great grandparents supposedly died of their injuries.
As I waited behind an older British couple at the museum while they purchased their tickets for 3 euro each, the gentleman asked the woman tending the desk if she had heard of Guernsey. She had not. He went on to explain quite bitterly that his wife is from Guernsey, a small island that was also occupied by the German army and that they suffered greatly. His wife started to chime in with some gruesome details about the Guernsey occupation and Germans in general when the woman saw me behind them and politely tried to move them along by saying, “My family wasn’t here during the war.”
He continued for a few moments and then ended with a sarcastic and self-righteous, “gotta love those Germans.” I felt my morning coffee and avocado toast curdle in my stomach. I have read The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. I have some idea of what those innocent people suffered while occupied. But for a British man to scoff at “those Germans,” as if Great Britain had never inflicted suffering on an innocent people, had never imposed their will on another country and ravaged their resources, had never stood by well-fed themselves as oppressors while the people they occupied starved, to say the least. It more than annoyed me. It sounded as audacious to me as an American self-righteously complaining to an African about human trafficking or the horrors of slavery, or to a Native American about genocide. They may not have been your hands inflicting the direct harm, but a disposition of humility, an understanding of history, and a sense of shared humanity would caution one against blindly ignoring what your own people have done.
I don’t mean to dismiss or demean the suffering that was inflicted on the people on Guernsey or Leros or all across the whole of Europe, Northern Africa, throughout the south Pacific, and for sure in the camps where the German army tried to extinguish the Jewish population during WWII. I only think it is important that while considering the blood on others’ hands, collective or individual, we also recognize the blood on our own, collective and individual. One does not have to inflict the ravages of war to understand the harm we have inflicted on others.
There has only ever been one set of innocent hands in this world. And those hands were bloodied and later extended to a beloved doubter for the nail scars to be touched with his own. It's a tension for sure, moving about in the world as a person seeking to be mindful of the blood on my own hands and the doubts that cloud my own faith, and as someone who asks for and freely receives forgiveness from the one whose innocent hands were bloodied to extend it.
Inside the courtyard of the castle on the hill overlooking Agia Marina. This castle and the church inside it from the 10th century was unharmed during the 52 days of bombing.
