The Sacrifice: Part II
Many people even at the commencement of World War I, were
questioning and had doubts about the meaning of the war and the deaths of those
who fought. *1 Kollwitz understood the brutalities and the after
math that would come upon those engaged in battle. She was disgusted by the harebrained
atmosphere of victory being spread to turn a blind eye from the wrenching truth,
that these “boys were going off to war.” *2 Kollwitz in hidden
desperation was questioning and searching for meaning to help her get through.
She reconciled that, “only one circumstance makes all this bearable: the
willing acceptance of sacrifice. The acceptance of sacrifice had become a moral
and ethical postulate, removed from individual volition and sentiment.” *2
Kollwitz had to separate herself from her personal desires and emotions
in order to believe that her son was serving a moral purpose and not giving his
life for nothing.
Deep down as a Mother she sensed the worst, Kollwitz was
anticipating her children’s death’s. Her son Peter was pronounced dead on 22
October 1914, just ten days after she had last seen him. *2 Kathe
Kollwitz’s in her time of mourning adorned her son’s bed with flowers and habitually
everyone entering the room would participate in ritualistic activities that
consisted of burning candles, reading texts, letters, literary works. Every Christmas
they placed a Christmas tree behind his bed possessing a candle for each year
that he had been gone, they call his room “Peter’s Room”. *3 According
to Schulte and Selwyn, “the room became the shrine of a cult of the dead which
in turn became an element of everyday life in the Kollwitz house…’for his room
was holy.’” *4
*1 Schulte, Regina, and Pamela Selwyn. "Käthe Kollwitz's
Sacrifice." History Workshop Journal, no. 41
(1996): 193-221. Accessed March 30, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/4289436, 194.
*2 Schulte, Regina, and Pamela Selwyn, 195.
*4 Schulte,
Regina, and Pamela Selwyn, 197.
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