European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - February 2, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse Italy once known for its Large families now has the lowest birth rate in Western but Hope. Old world desperately needs new bloody William Drozdiak the Washington Post n the race to stay competitive with the rest of the world Western Europe is slowly Awakening to i troublesome Handicap its population is rapidly turning Gray burdening prosperous societies that must find new Means to subsidize theold. A steady trend toward longer life spans and diminished birth rates is starting to have a dramatic Impact throughout the 12 states of the european Union just when they Are experiencing the steepest recession in two decades. Schools Are shutting hospitals Are becoming overcrowded Ana the tax base of productive workers everywhere in Western Europe is shrinking. Amp about one fifth of the Union s 340 million citizens Are Over age 60. Demographers say the proportion will grow so that by 2010 there will be More europeans drawing pensions than contributing to them. Quot Quot Europe has been getting older since the turn of the Century but the effect on our Quality of life May really Start to show in the next few years said Padraig Flynn social affairs chief of the eur s executive body the european commission. Quot if we Don t get some of the 20 million unemployed people Back to work soon it will be hard to finance our welfare a Quot birth dearth Quot has afflicted the wealthier parts of Europe for More than a decade. According to the . Population fund Italy has the world s lowest Fertility rate statistically women Bear Only 1.3 children. All countries in Western Europe except Ireland rank below the 2.1 level of the United states and the 3.3 world average. The . Level would maintain current population absent immigration. The drop in european procreation often is attributed to the growing Independence of women who have entered the work Force in Large num tiers and do not want the burdens of raising a Large family. A recent european commission study Europe has been getting older since the turn of the Century but the effect on our Quality of life May really Start to show in the next few years. A Padraig Flynn eur s social affairs chief found that of the 168 million women living if european Union states More than one Quarter Are Heads of households either living alone or As single parents. They have fewer babies at a later age and births outside marriage Are rising fast. Among couples sociologists Point to a widespread desire in prosperous european societies to spend More Money and time on travel and Leisure rather than on children. The increased use of birth control and legalized abortion in Europe has coincided As Well with a population shift from Rural regions to cramped Urban areas where multiple children create space problems. Until recently Europe has been Able to compensate by drawing in Large numbers Oyoung foreign workers from Turkey and North Africa who performed dirty and dangerous jobs that White europeans disdained. Social researchers say that what is often overlooked in the Rush to close doors to foreigners in response to unemployment is that payroll contributions of working immigrants Are an important source of funding for the pensions and health care of the native born. Quot governments across Europe have been talking about the need to keep foreigners out but they did not see beyond a political response to the Rise of the far right Quot said Patrick Weil an immigration specialist at a leading French research Center. Now he said Germany and France Are starting to acknowledge that they will need hundreds of thousands of new immigrants to pay the pensions of their additional elderly citizens. French Interior minister Charles Pasqua modified an earlier stand that France must move toward Quot Zero immigration Quot declaring that up to 100,000 foreign workers a year will be needed to fill jobs French workers Are unqualified or unwilling to do. In Germany politicians Are recognizing that the country will require substantial contributions from non German employees to sustain expensive pension and welfare programs. Hans Ulrich Klose a spokesman for the opposition social democrats said 2 million foreigners Are responsible for 10 percent of the National output and furnish an even greater proportion of taxes and pension fund contributions. Short subject history being remade in German school by the Washington Post its Only 7 30 . But every student in classroom 25 at Zschernitz High school in Dresden Germany is awake and attentive. Today s topic origins of me third Reich. Quot what do you think of when you think of fascism a teacher Ronny Kuehne asks his rapt ninth graders. Answers come flying Back. Quot world War Quot the Quot concentration Camps Quot Kuehne nods chalking each word on the blackboard. Quot you know a he adds Quot there Are orthodox jews in Israel who still can t forgive you. Even the third generation after the War is still held responsible for what such Are the burdens of history Foi German children. Yet that direct implication of responsibility a for the War for the holocaust for the catastrophe that befell Europe a is a new twist in the former East Germany where history is not what it used to be. Like thousands of other schools once run by the communists Zschernitz High is undergoing a Renaissance when it comes to teaching the third Reich and the coid War. Quot we require a Basic reassessment of How history is taught a said Kurt Biedenkopf a former West German Law professor who is Premier of the Eastern state of Saxony. Quot in the German democratic Republic East Germany it was held that the Cdr had nothing to do with the. German past that the population Here was not to blame for the holocaust. They considered East Germany anti fascist and therefore had moved out of historical in Saxony the most populous of Germany s five new states the government has aggressively searched All 2,000 schools for what is called a politically burdened thinking about the past. Old textbooks have been replaced. Some school names have been changed. And nearly 9,000 teachers have been fired or pressed into Early retirement particularly those who were communist party functionaries or had secret police ties. Many of the remaining 42,000 teachers in Saxony Are undergoing mandatory reeducation. Teachers in Many cases Are learning for the first time about such Basic concepts As the development of democracy in ancient Greece medieval England and revolutionary America. Students in Erfurt Germany hold a portrait of their school s new namesake concentration Camp survivor Wilhelm Hammann wednesday february 2, 1994 the stars and stripes 17
