Carta escrita ao povo alemão

Letter to the German people from a Portuguese citizen

Dear friends:

First of all let me tell you that I have always had great admiration for you all, and when I had the privilege to be appointed to a mission of representing my country in Germany, I felt honored to represent my country and simultaneously could have the exact idea of your country and your people.

The reality of the German people was someone between cold, distant, nothing comparable to us the people of the south, and at the same time friendly. But that did not stop me from realizing that when you make a friend this is something very serious and permanent. This is not easy, becoming a friend, because people are somewhat distant, but deep down what I’ve notice is that people are a reflection of something.

I’ve learned a lot in the almost four years that I remained in your country, I’ve learned not to be so consumerist, although I wasn’t that so consumist, to think before purchasing anything. But I also saw that many people were still marked with deep scars, who unconsciously leave their attitudes hinder their actions.

Having said that our history has been that facts must always be taken into account, both by those who go down to those who walk on top and eventually with governmental responsibilities. Not wanting to raise ghosts of the past, but always bearing in mind that "He who does not learn from past mistakes, sooner or later repeat those mistakes in the future," let me remind you that when U.S. troops liberated the Nazi extermination camps conquered areas, General Eisenhower ordered the German’s civilian population of nearby villages were obliged to visit them. Everything is documented. We can see civilians vomiting, faces shocked and stunned, before the skeletal corpses of the Jews who were in the queue for an interrupted incineration.

The ability of humans to deceive themselves, on the moral plane, is almost as infinite as the ability of the ignorant live happily in