US Jewry Faces Old Question: Reconcile With Germany?

US Jewry faces old question: Reconcile with Germany?
By David Minthorn, The Associated Press

NEW YORK - The question still roils the Jewish community: Is reconciliation with Germany possible or even desirable after the slaughter of 6 million?

Some believe relations were poisoned forever by the Nazis' campaign to wipe out Europe's Jews. To them, "Never forget" means refusing to buy German products, travel to Germany or having anything to do with Germans.

But more than five decades after the war, political realities are challenging unbending attitudes. Modern Germany bears no resemblance to Hitler's era, the government has made restitution to many victims and Germany has become a stalwart ally of Israel, as well as the United States.

Harriet Mandel of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, a coordinating body for 60 groups, favors reconciliation, but other Jews in the United States do not.

"Sentiment to continue boycotting Germany is quite deeply imbedded," Mandel said. "Second- and third-generation American-born Jews are the most reluctant to move on."

An estimated 250,000 children of Holocaust survivors live in the United States, researchers say, some banding together to discuss childhoods colored by their parents' efforts to deal psychologically with the death camps, losses of family members and guilt about their own survival.

Even American Jews not directly touched by the Holocaust say they are expressing a tribal solidarity with the victims and their offspring by refusing to buy German or visit the country.

Former US Treasury Secretary Michael Blumenthal, a German-Jewish Holocaust refugee, believes Jewish sentiment for shunning Germany has declined over the last 20 years as German democracy has strengthened.

"The German generation in power today is trying very hard to make amends," said Blumenthal, who heads the new national Jewish Museum in Berlin. "They recognize that the worst thing that could happen is to forget."

Still, he said survivors' views on Germany are influenced less by political developments than by whether close family members were victims of the Nazis.

Inge Oppenheimer, who spent her childhood in the German city of Kassel and was deported to a concentration camp in Czechoslovakia, visited Germany and recalled seeing her parents' name on a plaque for Holocaust victims.

"I got hysterical at the realization of what happened," she said.

She discussed her experiences at the Jewish Heritage Museum of New York in a recent symposium on Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, the Nov. 9, 1938, attack by Nazi followers on synagogues and Jewish businesses across Germany.

Oppenheimer sensed the Germans she met on her visit felt uncomfortable around Jews, which she saw as a legacy of the Holocaust. Still, she said, "Today Germans are different. I must admit it."

Roman Weingarten, originally from Krakow, Poland, and a survivor of the Dachau concentration camp, agreed. "Today to put them all in one bushel, I don't associate with that," he said.

The Jewish population in Germany now numbers more than 100,000, the largest community in Western Europe, with most coming from Russia and elsewhere in Eastern Europe over the last 10 years. It is a remarkable rebirth, considering Germany's prewar Jewish population of 500,000 was almost wiped out.

Blumenthal addressed several hundred people in October at Temple Emanu-El in New York, tracing Jewish evolution from ghettos to assimilation in Germany, as typified by his own ancestors dating back to the 17th century.

In his high-profile position at the Jewish Museum, Blumenthal often meets Germans forced to fully confront the history of the Third Reich for the first time.

As a 12-year-old in Berlin, Blumenthal saw his merchant father dragged away to Buchenwald concentration camp on Kristallnacht. When his father was released, the family fled Germany for Shanghai, China, where they spent World War II, then emigrated to the United States in 1947.

In speaking to younger Germans born after the Holocaust, Blumenthal said, "I tell them, `You have no reason to feel guilty. But you have to learn about the past."'

However, Blumenthal takes a different approach with Germans old enough to have lived through the war.

"I tell them, 'Of course you knew what was being done to the Jews,"' he said. "These are people who come to me and say they didn't know, it wasn't their fault."

Dieter Kastrup, German ambassador to the United Nations, said Germany's Holocaust reparations so far have amounted to 100 billion marks - more than $50 billion in current terms.

"Of course, no amount of money would compensate," he told the seminar.

A lesson of the Holocaust for Germans? "Never again will we accept the exclusion of people because of their religion or origin," Kastrup said.

In related news, two Holocaust-themed television dramas have been nominated for Golden Globe Awards by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.

Anne Frank (ABC) was nominated in the Miniseries or Movie Made for Television category, as was Conspiracy (HBO).

The very youngest Nazi soldiers are now in their 70s. Never forget -- but the people in Germany now are not the Nazis and should be judged as individuals.

Entirely agree. While a resevoir of anti-semitism does exist I can't say it's notably worse than any other European country. There are skinhead problems in the East but my sense is there's as much an element of simple hooliganism as anything else. That being said, I can understand how people who lived through the Holocaust could remain bitter forever. I probably would if in their position, I must admit.

What struck me most when I've travelled in Germany, both before and after unification (and yes, I am Jewish) was the extraordinary lengths the Germans go to try and atone for the Nazi crimes, even today. My friend that I visit there (he lives in Dachau of all places) warned me not to identify myself as Jewish when I was travelling unless I was prepared for constant apologies from Germans. I tested his theory once in a bar in Munich and he was right on. I actually had to explain to the guys sitting there, none of whom were anywhere near old enough to remember the war, that Jews around the world were not raised to believe Germans were all evil people and could not be trusted. They appeared amazed that I felt no discomfort travelling as a Jew in Germany. I practically laughed at them except I didn't want to insult their obvious sincerity.

Another incident in Berlin sticks in my mind. A few years ago Berlin authorities discovered a buried torture cell compound right near the city hall that they named The Chamber of Horrors, or something similar. This underground room apparantly was not the kind of place someone would have wanted to find themselves in judging from the pictures on the walls and some of the "tools" that were found there. A group of obviously fresh army recruits were being led through the facility by some very stern looking officers with the groups stopping at each display for a long and serious explanation. I can't understand German more than I need to order a beer but from the ashen expressions on these soldiers' faces my bet is they were getting pretty detailed descriptions of what used to go on there. I asked one of the officers who spoke English what was going on and he said something to the effect that they bring all new soldiers there (or to similar places...he led me to believe they went to more than one) to learn the effects of blindly following orders you know are evil.

My point is that in my experience Germany has gone further than any other nation in history to own up to what was done in its name. For a jew to see Germany only through the prism of the Holocaust is to blind oneself to the Jewish history of the nation, a history that is coming more and more back into the open. I feel it's mainly because of the willingness to confront their past openly and honestly that Germany was able to take its place among nations as quickly as it did (albeit with a whole lot of help and encouragement from the Western allies). Certainly they've been far more willing to confront their skeletons than Japan. As an aside, I fear Russia will languish in its development until it brings itself to tell the true stories of the horrors of communism.

However, Blumenthal takes a different approach with Germans old enough to have lived through the war.

"I tell them, 'Of course you knew what was being done to the Jews,"' he said. "These are people who come to me and say they didn't know, it wasn't their fault."

Mr.Blumenthal: belive them. And you don't have to believe me. Read Stella by Peter Wyden, available by squeezing here. This is a story, written by a Berlin Jew, about another Berlin Jew who was a traitor to her co-religionists and worked for the Gestapo as a "Jew-catcher."

The sophisticated Jewish workers who remained (about 10,000 in all) in Berlin as late as 1944 DID NOT KNOW ABOUT THE DEATH CAMPS.

The three submarines Israel has ordered from Germany are diesel-electric, not nukes. But they CAN carry nuke-tipped cruise missles and stay out for 30 days. This will enable them to have two of them on patrol at any given time while the third is in port for refueling, resuppying, and maintenance.

On a slightly different note, Israel, more than any other nation has copied and perfected many of the successful techniques used by the WWII German military. In the 1967 6-day war they elevated the BlitzKrieg to a fine art. As imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I can only imagine Heinz Guderian beaming with pride.....

Please don't be offended by these parallels, because they don't end here. As a relatively small country, Israel must win decisive victories in short wars to avoid being worn down. They do so by having a highly competent, dedicated military organization. The regular army has alot of citizen reservists, but specialties like fighter pilots and submariners require alot more time than 2 weeks every two years. The major difference is that Israel uses its military to safeguard the security of the only democratic country in the Middle East while the professional German military of WWII was used to bring life to the dreams and delusions of a lunatic monster leading a totalitarian regime. By underestimating the resolve of his opponents, Hitler committed the German military to a long war which eventually wore them down.

Thank you for your perspective. My mother is German (American citizen for almost 30 years) and was born in 1949. I lived in Germany for six years as an Army brat. My brother and I were made aware of the horrors of the Holocaust from a very early age. However, my mother will not watch or read anything about it at all, anymore- not because she is in denial, but because she bawls when she sees it. My first experience with anti-Semitism was by Americans without a single drop of German blood in them (the same people called Germans "Krauts," too.) There is racism and anti-Semitism in Germany, still, but a heck of a lot less than I've seen here.

I can relate to the guilt- I am the 2nd generation born after WWII and I feel guilty for and sick about the actions of the Germans. I am glad you have an open mind about Germany and the people. I know they are far from perfect, but they still beat the French.

The German military teaches Innerefuehrung, "inner leadership," to their soldiers. The idea is taken straight from the precedent set by the Nuremburg Tribunals: you cannot be ordered to commit an act that is, on its face, morally offensive. Recruits and officer candidates get taught this from the day that they enter basic training, and there are frequent training days devoted to discussing the ethics of obeying and disobeying orders.

Your experience sounds like they came right in and told the troops, "This is what you can find yourself doing if you start ignoring your conscience." As one observer said: "Having just come back from living among the descendants of Danubian and Rhenish tribesmen, I think that Germans can safely lay claim to having good sense knocked into them."

It's we here in the United States who should worry ... we can't determine the meaning of "is" much respect the sanctity or "personhood" of every human life.

While Germany, of all places, decries in the courts our confection of human clones for "destructive research", our own President announces to all the some human lives are manufactured in Excess and -- because they are not chosen or purchased as Children -- should be used for Hopeful Humanitarian Research rather than just trashed like the refuse they are.

"This is what you can find yourself doing
if you start ignoring your conscience."

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