My mom and my aunt, her sister, have both never taken a plane flight. My mom is horrified every time I tell her I am taking a trip. She insisted that I had to cancel my trip to Spain before that trip in March 2022. My aunt, her sister has similar attitudes. My mom claimed that she would not be comfortable in a strange city alone. My solo trip to Germany starts less than 2 weeks from now. This trip is worse that past trips. My mom whined that she wouldn’t feel comfortable going to Germany. She read too many historical novels about WWII and/or the nazi genocide. My aunt claimed that until she was 12, her mom had to stay in the bathroom with her because she thought gas would come out of the shower. This trip has seems to trigger emotional baggage in my mom that is beyond her normal reactions when I take a trip. It seems that when she hears “Germany” in her mind she adds or thinks something like, nazi Germany, nazi genocide/Holocaust, bad place, and so on. She won’t buy German products except that when I was 10 she didn’t notice or care that the clarinet she bought me was made in West Germany. I am one of those secular Jews, Jewish according to heritage and the anti-semite definition only; I don’t observe any part of the religion; I don’t or dress in distinguishing clothing. I am actually over 40 now, I work at a normal job and live on my own, the 3 professionals I saw as an adult insisted that I am normal functioning. I have a maladaptive syndrome of feeling like I am doing something terribly wrong when I plan any trip. I don’t want to complain about my mom. I just want to better manage my desire to travel versus her reactions versus my feeling that I am doing something horribly wrong when I plan a trip.
I already know the answers to these questions. I know perfectly well that they are non-sensical or ridiculous but I need the exercise of asking them and seeing if I get straight answers anyway:
Do the following 2 sentences have the same meaning: “Recently (in 2024, traveling to) Germany is as safe as the rest of Central/west/southern/northern Europe” ... “nazi Germany was a good place / the nazi genocide was good”??
I am having trouble finding evidence of how many people have my mom’s attitudes.
No I don’t think Germany is the most special country in the world but the current country was started in 1949 – part of the land may be the same as nazi Germany but the current country is not a continuation of nazi Germany, the current country is a different country, in 2024 the vast majority of people alive in Germany in 1945, are not alive now, hopefully most of them won’t try hurting Jews. I know perfectly well that nothing is able to be good or ok about the nazi Genocide.
Is me communicating the above paragraph the proof that I am tone deaf, don’t care how my mom-feels, and/or that I think the nazi genocide/nazi Germany was good or ok??
(In 2024) if you travel to Germany and/or buy a German product (the only German product I have at the moment is a Lamy pen; I haven’t used Faber-Castell products recently; I don’t and have not owned a German brand car or a Bosch appliance), would that signal that you are tone deaf, don’t care how some Jews feel, and/or that you think nazi Germany was good or ok??
Am I more likely to get assaulted or mugged in south-east Michigan or where tourists would go in cities in Germany?
I can delete this thread if you can't tolerate it.