Giliell
New Member
A great atheist and humanist has died this week.
You won't hear about him in the news and neither will you ever read about him in any books, not even when one day the books will give atheists their share.
He was one of those humple fighters, of the small people who nevertheless fight all their lives for a better world, even though they'll most likely never hear thanks. One of those people without whom all those "great" thinkers and heroes are naught, because they would be alone. He was also my grandpa and I thought you should hear about him. Or probably I should just write about him, in which case you're welcome just to ignore this very biased orbituary.
Fritz Schlosser was born on April 19th in 1921 as the first child of a working class family in the "Saargebiet" which was at that time under the control of the "League of the Nations" (a predecessor of the UNO). He would have loved to become a watchmaker, but there was no money for that kind of apprenticeship, so he became a miner just like his dad. When the Saargebiet became once more a part of Germany in 1935, his highly political and anti-fascist family had to flee to France where they lived in the mining area of the Auvergne until the Vichy government deported them back to Germany. BEing a miner and from an anti-fascist family, the Wehrmacht only recruited him in its last days, in winter '44. After the war was over he returned home and married my grandma whom he'd first met during his emigration in France and with whose family he'd lived after their return to Germany when the rest of the family had to hide in a small village far away from the mines where he had to work.
They had one child, my mother, and I won't say they had an easy life.
But he never ever bowed down. I never met anybody of his age, or in fact few people 30 years younger, who was so openminded and unbiased. He would stand up to the casual racist slander. He accepted my gay friends without even thinking about it twice and he loved Chinese food.
He kept reading a lot. Not having had the chance to much of an education when he was young never was an excuse not to learn as possible later. So he read the great novels of Garcia Marquez and the autobiography of Nelson Mandela.
He loved to play chess, he taught me how to play chess and how it trained your logical thinking.
He was a great trade unionist, in fact he was honoured for 75 years of trade union membership this year and was honorary president of his trade union.
We were making plans for his 90th birthday in spring but he died suddenly and unexpectedly this Wednesday.
If you're feeling a bit of hopeless in facing the struggles we have today, think of him and people like him who stood up for our rights with their lives, who have made the road we're walking on today.
You won't hear about him in the news and neither will you ever read about him in any books, not even when one day the books will give atheists their share.
He was one of those humple fighters, of the small people who nevertheless fight all their lives for a better world, even though they'll most likely never hear thanks. One of those people without whom all those "great" thinkers and heroes are naught, because they would be alone. He was also my grandpa and I thought you should hear about him. Or probably I should just write about him, in which case you're welcome just to ignore this very biased orbituary.
Fritz Schlosser was born on April 19th in 1921 as the first child of a working class family in the "Saargebiet" which was at that time under the control of the "League of the Nations" (a predecessor of the UNO). He would have loved to become a watchmaker, but there was no money for that kind of apprenticeship, so he became a miner just like his dad. When the Saargebiet became once more a part of Germany in 1935, his highly political and anti-fascist family had to flee to France where they lived in the mining area of the Auvergne until the Vichy government deported them back to Germany. BEing a miner and from an anti-fascist family, the Wehrmacht only recruited him in its last days, in winter '44. After the war was over he returned home and married my grandma whom he'd first met during his emigration in France and with whose family he'd lived after their return to Germany when the rest of the family had to hide in a small village far away from the mines where he had to work.
They had one child, my mother, and I won't say they had an easy life.
But he never ever bowed down. I never met anybody of his age, or in fact few people 30 years younger, who was so openminded and unbiased. He would stand up to the casual racist slander. He accepted my gay friends without even thinking about it twice and he loved Chinese food.
He kept reading a lot. Not having had the chance to much of an education when he was young never was an excuse not to learn as possible later. So he read the great novels of Garcia Marquez and the autobiography of Nelson Mandela.
He loved to play chess, he taught me how to play chess and how it trained your logical thinking.
He was a great trade unionist, in fact he was honoured for 75 years of trade union membership this year and was honorary president of his trade union.
We were making plans for his 90th birthday in spring but he died suddenly and unexpectedly this Wednesday.
If you're feeling a bit of hopeless in facing the struggles we have today, think of him and people like him who stood up for our rights with their lives, who have made the road we're walking on today.