Summary Of Our Secret By Susan Griffin

Susan Griffin’s story Our Secret seems to be about a small boy living in the terrible world that is Nazi Germany, but the story is more about the pain and heartbreak that both citizens and soldiers carry with them still to this day. It was an event that changed the course of history all those years ago, and Griffin chose to reflect back on the world-tilting events of compliance to artificial selves that Nazi Soldiers did to fellow German’s and people from many other countries. They abused, both physically and mentally, by making these people commit acts that were both emotional and violence. This story shows that there are many different ways to write a story about history, and WWII journalism. When I was reading the story it put a different

When we talked about this in class, I liked Professor Miller’s quote about Nazi Germany she said, “The dirty river behind your house doesn’t look good when you have good clean water to drink, but when there is no water the dirty river, starts looking really good.” I thought that this described what the author talks about when she is explaining why the German’s turned to the Nazi party, it was because they were in dire straits and Hitler, promised to United the German people and bring them back to the golden age of Germany, what he didn’t tell them is that this included attacking the world’s largest military powers at the time to achieve this goal. Griffin likes to show this when quoting a woman talking about how she didn’t understand why they couldn’t do the same types of thing they could do before the war. The woman claims that she cannot use formal speech in her home because her father’s profession and the time of war, she said, “There were nuclear missiles standing just blocks from where she lived. However, her father never spoke about them. Only after many years away from home did she learn what those weapons were” (Griffin). This points out that there was no proper communication within the family during this time and that’s how Hitler wanted it, that only the people with that prized information were allowed to know about, in this case, the missiles. As a result, many children’s childhood was affected by this family’s secrets radically to the point that casual and normal conversation became unusual for her even as an adult. The family ended up carrying secrets from themselves about their identity. Himmler’s family was the same way, in that his father wanted him to only hang out with the children that he was friends with their parents, or students who were in a good position