Guenter Grass' confession

There are plenty of articles appearing on the recent
confession of Mr. Guenter Grass about his membership
of Hitler's elite Waffen SS. Commentators are saying
that he had no business being the moral voice of
Germany as he had not come out in the open. Maybe
they are right. But why could others not establish
this truth? This is something that confounds me about
that part of the world. When they talked years ago
about Kurt Waldheim, why did they not establish his
antecedents before he became UN Secretary General
or long before he became Austria's President. The role
of Juan Antonio Samaranch during the Franco period
is also well known --- so why was he allowed to be
President of the IOC. In any case, I do find that the
attitude of Europe towards its past is a very positive one.
There is a lot of soul-searching and a lot of 'coming out
of the closet'.

Unfortunately there is nothing of that sort in our country.
We have politicians in our midst in all political parties,
so many of who can be directly identified with specific
crimes of genocidal nature. But we have no soul searching
of this kind. There is a lot of crocodile tears about the
partition. There are those who have openly talked about
participating in specific crimes including murder, who have
been elevated to high posts in the ranks of certain
'cultural organizations'. It would be great if people took
a leaf out of the books of the European soul-searchers.
It is good to keep in mind the following quote:

"Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it."
---George Santayana