Being born and raised in a Southern Baptist family from Kentucky pretty much locks you into a whole way of thinking about life. Without any choice you are given a set of principles that you assume tell you the whole story about what to expect out of life.

But, somewhere deep inside, you know that the world that exists on the far side of the horizon may not necessarily agree with that set of principles, nor even know they exist. You realize that there is only one way to find out, and that is to go to the horizon, the sheer cliff that falls off into the ”other world” and seek the truth…

…which is never what you expect it to be.

What I found upon my move from the United States to Europe was a whole new set of rules about just about everything and a misunderstanding about how the world viewed the United States and how far off Americans were in their estimation of things outside of it’s borders.

Europe is not so different from the United States, except that actually just about everything is different. The common ability for people to speak multiple languages is the first thing that amazes you. Whether it is the coffee they drink, their bathing and clothing habits or the way buildings are built, the differences are sometimes subtle and often rather shocking.

When I moved to Bremerhaven, Germany for my first engagement in a German theater, the first person I met was a costume and set designer named Artur Hamm, now deceased. His years of experience in the German theater and his patience with me in helping me speak German were a huge help to me when I started out, along with my other colleagues at the theater.

But, there are two areas that he really helped me understand that I didn’t really know much about before. The fist thing was his story about World War II and the second was his life as a gay man in post war Germany. Something that was illegal for much of his life.

First to get through the question about being Gay. Anyone who knows me at all, knows I am not Gay, so this isn’t about defending ”my own kind.” It is also not about defending anyone really. It is about simply knowing the truth.

The truth Artur taught me about being Gay was that it was never a choice for him. To him it was always clear and he never questioned it. He maintains of course that there are those who go both ways, but in the end, being a Gay person, means you aren’t at all hetero. He never adopted the Gay marriage philosophy and thought it is a bad idea. He called it ”Quatsch”, which means more or less ”foolish or ridiculous” in english. Being gay was simply something you are or you aren’t and there isn’t any need in parading it around either. It was simply the way he was and he never apologized for it. In fact many people never knew it about him.

The second thing we talked at length about was World War II, das dritte Reich, Hitler and the Nazis. During a production of ”Die Weisse Rose”, the story of Hans and Sophie School” I played Hans, and during this time we would revisit the topic often.

Here is what he described to me about his years as a youth in Nazi Germany…

…Fear was the omnipresent force at work. Nobody trusted anyone and you never knew who was a spying Nazi and who wasn’t. So, people had to measure everything they said to everyone except their most trusted and close family and friends. He recounted several times when people were transported away because of their anti-nazi sentiments. His family had Jewish friends who suffered at the hands of the Nazis, and helped them when they could.

He talked about the bombing raids, and the bomb that exploded in front of the local church blasting out the windows of his house and cracking the wall, which is still there today. Their windows had to be kept shut to keep spies from listening in on their private family conversations. Most people were not Nazis, but some were and as soon as the war was over, nobody ever was, nor did people talk about it much…however people did know who was who for many years. It was one of the darkest chapters in the book of human history.

Walking through the towns totally destroyed by bombs and finding dead bodies in the fields, to cheering German anti-aircraft when they saw an enemy plane shot down, in spite of their dislike of Hitler, were all impressions he shared. He remembers when his little town was ”freed” and an American tank turned down his street and the war was over for them.

He would describe the years after the war where they had nothing to eat and times were hard. The country slowly built back and he got his training to be a costume and set designer for the theater. Interestingly enough, one of his closest classmates and life long friend was the graphic artist for the famous ”Yellow Submarine” movie and cover of the Beetles, Heinz Edelmann. (A man I met on a short visit to Stuttgart.)

His work as a designer was of a very high quality and I never saw a costume that looked bad on anyone. He was very good at his work and well respected by his colleagues.

Today, a couple of months after his death, I can’t really believe he is gone. Someone I have known for half of my life has dissolved into thin air. But, the perceptions I have learned about Gays, about the back drop of the politics of Nazi Germany and the lessons learned about opera, theater and art as well as about nice spots in Europe, like Greece, Turkey, France and Italy have all enriched my life and given me a different way to look at all things foreign.

His world-view, as are all, are skewed by the lens of one’s own history.

We cannot claim to have the wisdom to know what is right for the world in general, but we can look at the world and realize that everyone is dealing with the same limited deck they were given as children and to respect and try to understand ways that are not like ours.