Listening to David Grossman speak at Freie Universität Berlin the other night left me suspended somewhere between inspiration and intimidation. I was so emotionally ravaged by his book To the End of the Land that I couldn’t find the words to talk about it with anyone after I recently finished it. Yet on Tuesday night, when speaking about the Holocaust, Grossman told us “we need words even when there are none.” I continue to struggle with the effort to find the words to tell my stories, but as Grossman also said “you find your identity by finding your own words.”
There are many people in Germany who want to tell part of the story of what happened to the Jews during the Shoah. Some have a professional resume and others are citizen historians. They collect names, addresses, photographs, dates of deportation and death, but they cannot collect memories. They help us learn who we are and where we came from. We need them, but they cannot tell our stories. When I parted company with the members of our group of former Jewish residents of Frankfurt earlier this month, my hope was that they would take ownership of their stories and find a way to share them.
I can’t imagine my own words having the emotional impact of someone as gifted as David Grossman. Yet I have seen my written words touch people in different ways, restore the memory of forgotten relatives, and help me dig beneath all that is superficial in my life. That is the power of storytelling.
Donna Swarthout 
Die Sprache ist die Kleidung der Gedanken
Das steht auf der Titelseite der Zeitung, die die Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hamburg herausgibt. Wir kommen gerade von einem kleinen Konzert mit Senatsgästen zurück. Im letzten Jahr waren wir gemeinsam dort, Donna. Du warst in Begleitung deiner Schwester und deines Sohnes.
David Grossmanns Bücher werden in Deutschland mit großem Interesse gelesen. Sprache ist Teil deiner Identität, dem stimme ich unbedingt zu. Es ist die Sprache, die dich ausmacht, die dir Türen öffnet.
In meinem zweiten Schreibkurs, der dem personalen Schreiben galt, wurde mir vermittelt, dass ich meine Schreibstimme finden muss. Wenn dann eine Schweizerin sagt, die Schrift sei die Verlängerung der Seele, dann wissen wir, dass gesprochene und geschriebene Sprache Teil von uns und damit Teil unserer Identität ist. Wer sich dessen bewusst ist, hat einen hohen Anspruch an seine Sprache und möchte sie ständig weiter entwickeln. Wer das tun möchte muss lesen, u.a. David Großmann.
In diesem Sinne
Dagmar aus Hamburg
I have been following your blog for quite some time now, and I find it very interesting in deed as
I am coming from a very similar background to yours as both my parents immigrated from Germany (father from Breslau and my mother from Oldenburg, lower Saxony) to what was then British Mandated Palestine. I have accumulated a large collection of documents, photos correspondence (before, during, and after the war) of my family in Oldenburg. My paternal grandfather was a prominent member of the Jewish community before and after the war. I come to the conclusion that the best way to let their personal stories be known is by donating the entire collection to the US Holocaust Memorial Museum (unfortunately Yad Vashem didn’t show much internet in the collection) and make it available for researchers and students. If you google Abraham Levi papers you will get to the collection. I truely believe that saving the evidence is of paramount importance as we are the last generation that has a direct connection to the Holocaust. It is our responsibility to save evidence and make it available to the coming generations,
I enjoy following your blog,
Abraham Levi, Israel
Hello Abraham, Thanks for your comments. My husband Brian’s grandfather was also from the Breslau area and emigrated to Shanghai where my mother-in-law was born. Brian’s family has also donated documents to the Holocaust Center in San Francisco. I agree with you that it’s important to make such documents available to a wider audience. Thanks for reading my blog and warm wishes from Berlin. Donna
Does he know by any chance anything about the Hammerslag family from Breslau? I found a typed postcard sent to my paternal grandmother Hannah Levy in 1941 from Shanghai. He wrote that he had managed to find work as a porter.I have donated that post card to the USHMM as well!
That name did not ring a bell with Brian but perhaps the families knew each other. I’m interested to learn more about what life was like for the Jewish refugees of Shanghai.
Ernst Hammershlag was a well known journalist in Breslau, He is somehow related to my paternal grandmother Hannah Cohen Levy through her family.
There are some good documentary films about Jewish refugees in Shanghai:
“Escape to the Rising Sun”
“Exile Shanghai”
“Shanghai Ghetto” by Dana Janklovicz-Mann an Israeli filmmaker
“Port of Last Resort”
“The last refuge”
“A Place to Save your Life”
Life there was very harsh, especially after the Japanese occupation,
Abraham
Thank you so much for these recommendations! We will try to track these films down and watch them. Brian’s grandfather and family were in Shanghai for 8 years and his grandfather worked as a waiter in a restaurant. They emigrated to San Francisco where he eventually became the head of catering at the Fairmont Hotel.
Hi Donna,
I have been following your blog or a long while as well. reading here was one of the things to help push me to have my German citizenship restored after years of contemplating it. My family has a war story much like other surviving Jewish families from Europe. My family is from East Prussia however, Germans in legal status and culture but not by modern geography. I’ve been working through some documents that have been stored by my family and uncovering some exciting details and my desire is to compile things for posterity. I had contemplated donating materials to the US Holocaust Museum but I’m conflicted as these are really family treasures that I would not want my children and their children to lose out on so I may choose to have them maintained by document specialists. My grandfather’s Reisepass has already been donated to the a Japanese museum relating to Chiune Sugihara.
Secondarily, I have so many questions about living and visiting Germany. I hope all is well.
Sincerely,
Adam Finkelstein
Hi Adam, Thanks for taking the time to write to me. I’m glad that my blog helped a bit to move you towards having your citizenship restored. Please feel free to ask any questions and I will do my best to answer. My email address is dswartho@aol.com. Best wishes, Donna