The temperatures in Paris France were dropping fast. Even with gloves on, my sketches were getting a bit shaky. I had to leave my hotel near the Eiffel Tower very early to meet my Uber driver for a ride to the airport. I had success navigating Paris with the Metro and considered taking it to the airport, but the maps were not super clear on which stop I needed at the end of the line. I also was concerned about possible wait times as I switched trains at several stations. I’m glad I took Uber because it gave me a chance to look at the landscape as we drove out of the city.
I was rather sad to leave Europe because I knew I would be returning to strip malls and a fascist government. I documented an World War from 80 years ago but war was most certainly likely to break out again. The American president considered himself a war time president during the worst of the pandemic. He will only truly feel masculine when he is using the military against Americans and against nations of his choosing.
I thought I was documenting the worst possible fascist regime by sketching WWII sites my father passed through and liberated in Germany, but Germany learned its lessons from America which has always been racist and had no problem putting Japanese Americans in concentration camps at the start of WWII. Germans put people who were not Aryan enough into concentration camps. America is now following suit by randomly picking up people off the streets who do not look American enough. Children are being used as bait to seize and imprison parents in the detention centers.
It started to snow as we drove towards the Charles de Gaulle Airport. It was the first now I had seen in my three months sketching the movements through Europe of the 75th Infantry Division. I am sure my father, 1st Lieutenant Arthur Thorspecken had visited Paris on leave from Camp Cleveland which he helped run. My father left Europe on about August 1, 1945, on a boat to America. He had been in Europe for 1 year, 3 months and 18 days. I originally wanted to stay in Europe sketching for the same duration, but the Schengen rule only allowed me 3 months to complete my sketch project. I had to rush through the 70 or so cities in France, Belgium, Netherlands and Germany at a much faster pace with my tiny French rental car.
You can tell a lot about a country by how people drive. Driving in Paris was of course hectic, but country driving was a delight. Belgium and the Netherlands both felt relaxed. Trucks drove below the speed limit, and all the other drivers were very polite. When I drove the speed limit, I would always find myself passing most of the traffic. Germany on the other hand is much like America in that all the drivers seem to be in a furious rush to get to the next stop light. Germans tail gate even closer than Americans do. They would rather drive though you than around. I had no desire to have a German officer stop me for driving too fast so I stuck to the speed limit. I started singing a little jingle every time there was a German on my butt. Every German I met who saw my rental car always commented on the French license plate. It looks just like a German license plate but with a tiny F instead of a tiny G. It might have been a mistake to drive the whole trip in a French car.
I also have a baseball cap that has the American 75th Infantry logo on it. In France people love the Americans for their help liberating their country from German occupation. The cap helped me fit in with WWII reenactors and others who appreciate the accomplishments of the greatest generation during WWII. People in Belgium and the Netherlands also appreciated seeing the emblem from 80 years ago. When I crossed the Rhine River into Germany, I stopped wearing the 75th Infantry Division hat, replacing it with a simple black cap.
At the time of my flight back to America the government had been shut down and air traffic controllers were not being paid. I was almost certain that flight would be delayed. I had no choice, my 3 months in Europe were up. Other than the exhausting wait going through customs the flights ran on schedule. All 6 of the sketchbooks I had filled were in my backpack along with multiple books about Stalag VI-A the POW camp that the 75th Infantry Division helped liberate. I am still translating the German book about Stalag VI-A too learn all about the camp which would have opened my father’s eyes to the horrors of how people are treated as subhuman and starved to death for the sake of a fascist Aryan ideal. I have no doubt that what he witnessed would have molded his world view for the rest of his life. If he were still alive, I would have so many questions.