[Opinion] Reconciliation of Europe

The old town of Warsaw, the capital of Poland, is practically not an old town. At the end of the Second World War, Adolf Hitler, who was exasperated by the consecutive insurrections of the militia and the Jews, ordered the “complete wipeout” of Warsaw. The Nazis installed high-powered bombs at every pillar of all the buildings in Warsaw and exploded them. Just like Carthage, where the Roman Imperial army destroyed every bit of the buildings in the city to make the city disappear from history, Warsaw was left with only its name on the map. The movie “Pianist” by Roman Polanski describes well about the wretched spectacles of that day. The old town of Warsaw is now the “new town” that has been rehabilitated by the Polish government through a thorough research and investigation of the past.

The murderer and the victim of the history, Germany and Poland, met with each other under the same boundary of the European Union on May 1. On that day, the Czech Republic became part of the same family with Austria, which has swayed over the country for more than 300 years. Hungary and Slovakia, which have been under a dominator-dependency relationship for more than 1000 years, joined the European Union simultaneously. As a matter of fact, the existing E.U. participating countries and the newly registered countries had confronted each other during the Cold War period. Because of this situation, the British BBC assessed this as “E.U.’s expansion has finally crossed the Rubicon River which really concludes the Cold War.”

On June 5, the other reconciliation will occur at Normandy, France. German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder will participate in the 60th anniversary of the Normandy landing operation celebrating ceremony. This is the first time for the German summit to take part in the Normandy landing ceremony that led to the final victory of the allied forces in the Second World War. The foundation of the reconciliation that occurred consecutively in Europe possesses a sincere apology to the others. In 1970, West Germany’s chancellor, who visited the Jewish memorial monument in Warsaw, apologized for their act of barbarity during the Second World War by crying over and keeling on the wet ground.

In contrast with the situation of Europe, the Korean peninsula has been covered up with the black cloud of rancor. Between Korea and Japan, continuous conflicts have been occurred based on diverse subjects such as the East Sea and Dok-do. Instead of the tears and apology of the Japanese conquerors, we are familiar with their surprise visit to the shrines where tens of thousands of war criminals mortuary tablets are placed. It is not the proper time for attributing every fault to Japan. The reconciliation between South and North Korea, and the progressionists and conservatives, are even hard to accomplish. When does the warm wind of reconciliation that currently flows merrily through the European continent finally visit our country?

Correspondent Park Je-kyun in Paris phark@donga.com