Foreword
A teacher’s remarks to the English version
of Rosine De Dijn’s
“Du darfst nie sagen, daß du Rachmil heißt”, DVA München 2005
This translation into English was undertaken by students of
Albertus-Magnus-Gymnasium in Bensberg, and
Oscar-Picht Gymnasium in Pasewalk,
two small towns in Germany, the former in Nord-Rhein Westfalen, the latter in Mecklemburg-Vorpommern.
The initiative was taken by the Frau Petra Eckert in Pasewalk and her students when they attended a lecture by the book’s author. The lecture quickly developed into the students questioning the author, as they obviously wanted to know more about their region’s history in the first part of the last century.
When they had volunteered to translate the parts as stated below, Frau De Dijn contacted me as her son’s former English teacher, and asked if my students were ready to join.
And surely they were. They did it all in their in their free time, in the autumn holidays.
They were not only quite enthusiastic about doing something totally different from the normal English curriculum at an advanced level, they were also interested in the linguistic challenge. Above and beyond that, there was a genuine curiosity and interest to learn about an individual’s plight at the time of the Third Reich and the Second World War, which they had been studying at various levels and to some extent during their history lessons at our school.
When they learnt that the translation would be given to the victim’s descendents and only through their translation those people would be able to learn something of their ancestors' suffering and fate. The students' volunteering work got an extra, emotional dimension and motivation.
These students have shown that the often blasted youth of today do not lack, what they are said to be lacking. They have shown themselves altogether altruistic. They want to be challenged, and they surely have done well.
That is why I do not at all feel in the position of taking out my red ink pot to prey on their work. But I am rather grateful to them for the job satisfaction that I have experienced through them.
I hope that the students’ texts will be given their due, because they well deserve it, in any respect.
Last but not least I would like to express my deeply felt gratitude to Herr Marcel Knuth, a former student of mine, whose computer expertise saved me a lot of trouble and life-time.
Bensberg November 2006 Robert Peters
