Daniel was one of several young US students who participated in this work camp, which was carried out together with young Germans and teenagers from other nations of the same age. The participants of that international youth meeting in 1989 at Remagen where, next to the Germans, mainly teenagers from the USA and young people from the east, from Czechoslovakia and the former USSR.

During the three weeks of the meeting, Daniel Burgman and Friedrich Voss, called Frieder, became friends. He was also a student of history and matriculated  at the university of Münster/Westphalia. By chance they were both grandchildren of former veterans. Daniel was a grandson of Captain Elias Burgman, who belonged to the American guarding team of camp Remagen in 1945 and Frieder Voss was a grandson of Sergeant Wilhelm Voss who was one of the hundred thousand prisoners behind the barbered wire of that camp. In an evening the two young people, the American Danie and the German Frieder, sat on the steps in front of the old bridge towers which show interested visitors the way to the Remagener peace museum today. They looked on the river and had a good conversation - it came to the

Dialog of the grandchildren

This conversation was led in English because Daniel Burgman spoke hardly a couple of German words while Friedrich Voss was able to express himself almost liquidly in English. The dialogue, recorded with a tape recorder and translated into German, was published by Karlheinz Grohs in his book "The black Madonna of Remagen". The original English text of the conversation between Daniel and Friedrich is published in the "Mansfield Mail Herald", a local newspaper of a small town in the north of Ohio.

47 years after:
The grandchildren about the history of their grandfathers:

Danie:

"At that time, my Grandpa had a bad meaning of the Germans. He took it personally that he had to come across the Atlantic ".

Frieder:

"Why  that? Why he took it personally?"

Danie:

"My Grandpa was one of those people who were very displeased by any change of his well-worn life. He lived all the time in our little place in Ohio, never came out of that village except, if needed, to the next bigger town which had maybe thousand inhabitants more but was like his hometown as delimited and remote. And suddenly the war came and his normal live changed radically. For him, the war changed his live. He was retracted to the Army and suddenly he had to wear a uniform and -- the worst -- he had to leave his family and was away from woman and children, from everything which was dear to him. Just because Uncle Sam ordered it. "

Frieder:

"Yes, OK, that is usual during a war. But why the Germans? The Germans were guilty for that situation in the opinion of your grandfather? But wasn't it the case, that the Japanese have started war with America? Pearl Harbor!"

Danie:

"Not at all, my friend, not at all. The Germans have declared war to the USA in December 1941, without need,  just because they where allied with the Jap's. Actually this wasn't it at all. It was rather much more personal to my Grandpa, as he told me many years later. And, when he told it to me, I probably did not exactly understand, like you at this moment, what he meant. Look, my family came former from Germany. My Grandpa on father's side came from Germany and the Grandma of my mother was also a German who has immigrated to the states with her parents as a young girl. The German origin was one reason. But there was something else very important to my Grandpa. He not only hated wars in any form but he also hated armed forces and uniforms. One had to suffer for his discomfort, his anger - no I have to say - his hate he transferred to the Germans in Nazi Germany. They started the war, and the Americans at the other side of the Atlantic had to intrude, so that Hitler could not destroy the whole world; Nazi Germans in this Nazi Germany was guilty for everything in his opinion. He made the Germans responsibly that he had to leave his dearest home town, that he had to put on an unloved uniform and finally had to go over the big pond into a different unknown world which was foreign and weird to him. Although his people came from that country and he also had learned during his childhood the strange language of his family out of that unknown world."

Frieder:

"Where your grandpa and your grandma Jews?"

Danie:

"No, no. We aren't Jewish. We are Mennonites, were always Mennonites. But my Grandpa had comrades in his Unit who were Jewish. They also came from Germany or Austria, and one was Polish. All these people were belonging to a group of German speaking Americans, who were sent to Germany and France by the US War-Department in the end of 1944, to be used as examination-officers in the Prisoner of War-Camps. The Jews in that group were very raged. You can understand that or not?"

Frieder:

"I am not sure but I think that they wanted to take revenge at the beaten Germans."

Danie:

"Of course. But primarily they wanted atonement. Yes, atonement after all terrible crimes which the Germans committed to their fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters, to their whole nation. That concentration camps, the mass murders, the gas chambers and furnaces, the destruction of a whole nation. But you know better than me what happened."

Frieder:

"But the soldiers, the German soldiers who became a prisoner of your nation, they where not responsible for that. Was it necessary to treat them that way, to cattle them into the camps, to let them starve without any pity?"

Danie:

"Everyone was guilty, my Grandpa said. All of them where guilty because they haven't done anything,  because they looked away and let all these terrible crimes occur and because a part of them, you cannot deny it,  where involved at least. And it wasn't a non-political German army who had to defend their self and the German people against enemies. It was the German Nazi-Wehrmacht, leaded by Nazi-Generals, a Army who followed loyal the highest Nazi who was - like he called his self - the leader of the German people and the commander of the Wehrmacht. I ask you Frieder, what did your Grandpa and his comrades expected of the US forces when they raised their arms? Did they really expected that all the GI's, who came from far away and left their wives, children or girlfriends and who probably could die by a bullet of a German soldier, that these GI's embrace the Germans with the words: 'Wonderful that the war is over for you guys.' Where the Germans that naive to believe, that the Americans would offer warm blankets, cozy accommodations and lavish catering? No my friend. The American forces didn't came across the Atlantic to liberate Germany and the Germans. They came to liberate Europe - a Europe and their people who had to suffer under the marching steps of the German armed forces within the years before. That must be understandable. I want to tell you something. Excuse me but it seems to be characteristic German: while the German forces tramped victorious trough the occupied countries they where full of arrogance. When the situation turned they sank into poor complaining. 'Oh, they treat us very evil.' Like you to me so I to you, that I can tell you. And I remember the old proverb - you know it like I do - gone along with, caught with, hung with. Or not?

Frieder;

"What could the single, the simple soldier do? Nothing! He had to obey, if he liked or not. And then he felt the revenge of the winners, was crushed by them. There where children also, fifteen or sixteen years old my grandfather has told me. Children who where prisoner like my Grandfather in camp Remagen-Sinzig; in the same camp where your grandpa belonged to the camp-officers of the winners."

Danie:

"Who made soldiers out of these children where you talk about? Not the Americans. But anyway, there was a youth amnesty so far as I know. We don't searched the question of guilt in the German youth. Listen my German friend, responsible or not. Nerveless affected, we have to master the past on both sides.

Frieder:

"You are right. The history of a nation, his deeds and atrocities must be processed; not just in the brains but also in the hearts of the people. Otherwise force, aggression and the resulting brutality against the fellow man will never end. Without the declared belief in the past, with all their errors and misbehaving, no way can lead into the future of nations with concepts like: Respect, tolerance, human rights and human dignity! That is the guideline and must be valid in all nations and ethnic groups of our earth.

Danie:

"I have heard a phrase here: Reconciliation over the graves. This phrase is significant at this place of a former prisoner of war camp. However, I say, why "over the graves" at least? Have there be graves first to find a way of reconciliation? Communication between the nations must be the goal of every political effort. I think there is a much better phrase: Friendship between living people!"

Frieder:

"Yes, I can agree with you out of my deepest heart. Friendship between living people, that is decisive, that is the slogan we have to fight for. But fighting in a different sense, fighting with words instead of guns. I am very happy my American friend, that we had this open conversation with each other. And it is good, that we recorded it, for others also."

Danie:

"Also I have a good feeling concerning the meaning of our conversation. It should be published, in the US and here in Germany also. Isn't it a special symbol for the future, that we met each other here in Remagen and became friends, at a significant scene of history where our Grandfathers where enemies?"