Across Continents and Generations

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CIEE Berlin, German citizenship, German Jews, Holocaust, refugees, Theresienstadt

Sometimes the scattered pursuits of life come together to form a moment of connection, a moment that inspires and enlightens. This week my online acquaintance with a Holocaust survivor, my faculty position at CIEE’s Global Institute Berlin, and my desire to impart knowledge of the German Jewish heritage to my children and members of their generation came together in one such connecting moment.

The occasion was Garry Fabian’s visit to Germany to speak about his book A Look Back Over My Shoulder. It wasn’t just Garry’s story of internment, survival, and reconciliation that made the evening special, or the fact that a second German edition of his book has just been released (Blick Zurück. Wie ein Stuttgarter Junge das KZ Theresienstadt überlebt hat). Garry travelled with his daughter Carole and grandson Seamus from Australia, giving our students the chance to hear one family’s Holocaust story from an intergenerational perspective.

Garry is a true story teller whose easy-going speaking style invites us to face the past and learn about what we must never forget. He shared many vignettes from his childhood experiences as a refugee and concentration camp internee, but words were hardly necessary to demonstrate the strength of his spirit with his daughter and grandson at his side. Carole shared her second generation perspective, speaking of her grandmother’s silence and how she gained awareness of the plight of Melbourne’s Jewish refugees as she was growing up. Perched among the college students, my daughter Olivia, a high school senior, could relate to Seamus who spoke of how growing up Jewish and learning about the Holocaust were not as central to his identity as they were for his elders.

Born in Stuttgart in 1934, Garry established a renewed connection to Germany over the course of many years, ultimately deciding to reclaim his citizenship in 2007. Carole and her children have also become German citizens. I’m honored that Garry has contributed his citizenship story for my book project, which may soon include a submission from his descendants as well.

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Book Project on Restored German Citizenship

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Article 116, German citizenship, German Jews, Holocaust

It’s time to move on. I’ve told my German American Jewish story on this blog and in various publications over the last five years and reached a very broad audience. Now I plan to put together a compilation of stories of people who have reclaimed their citizenship under Article 116 of Germany’s Basic Law.

I believe our German citizenship stories are an important part of post-Holocaust history. These stories occasionally appear in the press, but there has been little comprehensive treatment of this topic since members of families that were persecuted by the Nazis began applying for restored citizenship after WWII. Reclaiming our citizenship is a part of reconciliation, helping us come to terms with the past, and live more fully in the present. It’s something positive to seize hold of, keeping us from being “stuck in time” even when we find it painful to revisit our family history. Our stories also have relevance for new generations of refugees and displaced persons.

If you have reclaimed your citizenship or are going through the process, please consider contributing your story to this book project. Submissions from South America, Israel, South Africa, the U.K., the U.S. and other parts of the diaspora are welcome. I’m also interested in including stories of those whose applications were rejected because only their mother was Jewish or due to other quirks in the German law. I’ve put together a list of German Citizenship Book Project Questions to help you think about and organize your story. Click on the link to download the list and you can start writing!

I do not yet have a publisher for this book but I will work hard to find one. If you have suggestions, advice, ideas, or questions, please post a comment or contact me at dswartho@aol.com. Please also share this post with any individuals or organizations who may be interested in this project.

Israelis and Berlin – A somewhat surprising love story

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Berlin, Diaspora Jews, Israelis in Berlin

Guest Submission by Eyal Roth

In recent years, Berlin has witnessed a rise in immigration from Israel. The numbers are not clear, but it’s estimated that about 15,000 Israelis are living in Berlin at this time. I am one of them.

In the last 15 years many Israelis began to visit Berlin as a travel destination. This emerging city, waking up from years of division, was an ideal place for young artists to work and play. Housing was cheap (sometimes free) and the general atmosphere was very liberal and accepting. It’s that atmosphere that also convinced many young Israelis to move to Berlin and start a life for themselves outside of Israel.

It’s important to say that living in Germany or even visiting it was considered a taboo in Israel for many years, what with its somewhat dark past. When I decided to move to Germany about four and a half years ago, I too was confronted with negative reactions from family and acquaintances. The most common question was “Why Germany?”

Eyal on Kopfsteinstraße in Berlin

The first wave of Israelis moving to Berlin was mainly young, artistic and liberal. As time progressed, Germany as a whole and Berlin specifically gained more and more acceptance in the eyes of many Israelis. Berlin became a well visited tourist magnet and the taboo status greatly diminished.

After the first wave of artists, “other kinds” of Israelis with different professions and life style preferences also started moving to the city, composing what is now the Israeli community of Berlin. This trend has been amplified by the rising housing prices in Israel; many young Israelis deal with a constant battle with their rent and overdrafts. Some of them decide to leave Israel and find a more comfortable existence elsewhere. I too was faced with a similar situation after ending my bachelor’s degree at the University of Tel-Aviv: high rents, low prospects and what felt to me an unpleasant political atmosphere. Berlin seemed like the place to go, and so far with no regrets.

The new Israeli community has already begun to flourish in many ways: a new Hebrew library has been established, monthly “round table” meetings take place, and even a new Hebrew magazine by the name of “Spitz” is printed on a bimonthly basis. These are all facets of a growing Israeli existence in the city. Israeli names have also popped up all over the cultural scene, from musicians, to contemporary dancers and what not. Israelis are everywhere.

Taboo or not, the dark past of Berlin is not a distant shadow and it’s indeed something that the new Israeli immigrants have to deal with. They do it in many different ways: some with humor, some with art, and some with different commemoration projects. A few Israelis (such as myself) take part in historical research and offer educational tours of the city, allowing tourists from Israel and the rest of the world to learn about the city through Jewish (or rather – Israeli) eyes.

Only time will tell if the love story between Israelis and Berlin is a fading trend, but for now it’s quite an exciting one.

Eyal Roth (32) was born in Haifa, Israel. He currently lives in Berlin, Germany.
He offers educational tours through Jewish Tours of Berlin.

Building Bridges through the Obermayer Awards

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German Jews, Holocaust, Obermayer Awards

The quest to learn your family history in the aftermath of a genocidal era such as the Holocaust requires help from others. Survivors and their descendants seek answers from many sources, ranging from government officials to village historians. My own family research brought me into contact with many dedicated people in Hesse to whom I will always be grateful. Before moving to Germany, I was not aware that there is a formal way to honor “Germans who have made outstanding voluntary contributions to preserving the memory of their local Jewish communities.” It’s been done almost every year since 2000 through the Obermayer German Jewish History Awards.

Long-term correspondence with one of my blog readers brought about the opportunity to attend the 2015 Obermayer Awards. He had written to me on numerous occasions about Jörg Kap’s dedicated efforts to commemorate the Jewish community that once lived in Arnstadt, Thuringia. He first nominated Jörg for the Obermayer Award in 2007, but it wasn’t until he was joined by fifteen other nominators from around the world this year, that the jury selected Jörg for this distinguished honor. As Jörg Kaps presented his extensive efforts to preserve the memory of Arnstadt’s Jewish families, I had a sense of what his volunteer work meant to the descendant of one such family.

Jörg Kaps and this year’s four other Obermayer Award winners are just some of the non-Jewish Germans who have helped to reclaim and rebuild a part of Germany’s history and culture that was all but obliterated. Their publications, restorations, art works, exhibits, tours, lectures, and more are a significant part of Germany’s ongoing reconciliation efforts.

Lately, we hear a lot more from the media about threats to the future of Jewish life in Germany and the rest of Europe than we do about positive signs for the future. I’ve offered my own perspective on trends affecting Jewish life in Europe in a new article for Tikkun Daily: Jewish in Europe: Another Perspective.

Mixed Messages

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anti-Semitism, Berlin, Berlin Wall, German citizenship, German Jews, Maxim Biller

Just a few months ago the media was filled with headlines about the rise of anti-Semitism in Germany and the rest of Europe. Then in the past month the headlines switched to a quite different set of messages. A recent survey of 20,000 people in 20 countries found that Germany tops the USA as the world’s favorite country and just last week I learned that among 1800 cities, Berlin was named the most fun city in the world. The revelry over the 25 year anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, trumpeting modern Germany’s free and democratic character, was an added flourish to the favorable image the media disseminated to global observers.

Fall of the Wall Celebration

How can we make sense from this hodgepodge stew of news bytes that yank our thoughts and feelings in such opposing directions? If we are living in a new dark era of danger, then why are global fun-seekers flocking to German bars, clubs, museums, and shops? Why do I continue to hear from readers who are eager to have their German citizenship restored?

There have always been ebbs and flows of anti-Semitism and other forms of extremism in Germany and they naturally correlate with major events such as last summer’s Gaza conflict. But that does not mean that Jews in Germany face the same threats of persecution as in earlier eras or that, as Maxim Biller recently claimed in Tablet Magazine and Die Zeit, “all anti-Semitism is the same.” There is ample documentation that Germany has become a more tolerant society, such as one recent study which found that “acceptance of anti-Semitic statements….dropped significantly, from 8.6 to 3.2 percent.” Yes, it is a fragile tolerance that may become strained as a result of various social and economic pressures, but this is nothing unusual for an advanced democratic society.

Sorting through the mixed messages from the media can be a challenge, which is why I tell people to come to Germany and see what it is like for themselves. Whether or not you decide Germany is your favorite country or Berlin is the most fun city in the world, you will probably have a lot of fun and find many reasons to celebrate.

Stand Up – A Germany for Everyone

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Angela Merkel, anti-Semitism, Berlin, Brandenburger Tor, German Jews, Mayor Klaus Wowereit

What slogan would you have chosen for a massive rally against anti-Semitism? Does the phrase “Nie wieder Judenhass” (Never again hatred of Jews) effectively guide us toward a stronger German society that celebrates and protects Jews and other minority groups? I would have preferred a more positive slogan, but I was still moved, along with thousands of others, to “steh auf” (stand up) for yesterday’s rally at the Brandenburger Tor in Berlin. I stood with the crowd to protest anti-Semitism and to affirm that Jews belong here.

The rain held off, the mood was calm and peaceful, and the minor disturbances at the fringes were easily halted by the police. It was my first chance to hear Berlin’s Mayor Klaus Wowereit and Chancellor Angela Merkel speak in person. Their words were firm and came across as sincere as they spoke of the shame that anti-Semitic acts have brought upon Germany and the injury that such hatred causes to all Germans. It was Merkel who said that Jewish life belongs here and is a part of German identity. Most of the speakers also affirmed that not just anti-Semitism, but other forms of prejudice such as racism and homophobia have no place in Germany. In just a little over an hour, Germany’s top political and religious leaders said what the people came to hear.

But the perennial question after such unifying moments is “Where do we go from here?” If it is true that “around 20 percent of people in Germany have anti-Semitic views,” what is being done and what further things must be done to change attitudes and behavior? I’ve been looking for the best way to make my own contribution to this cause, hoping my background as an educator and a repatriated German citizen can be of value. Stay tuned for future updates.

Die Ganze Mishpocha

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Berlin, Diaspora Jews, die mishpocha, German Jews, Jewish Community of Berlin, Jewish Stammtisch, Juedische Gemeinde zu Berlin, Kreuzberg

Jewish Berlin dishes up great soap opera material. While financial scandals and power struggles dominate the official Jewish Community of Berlin, tensions abound at the social level as well. The Jewish Stammtisch, an informal social gathering that I attended when we first moved to Berlin in 2010, had a rift and split into two groups. One group meets at Terzo Mondo, a Greek restaurant in West Berlin’s “schicki-micki” Ku’damm neighborhood. The other group gathers at Seerose, a vegetarian restaurant in the more hip Kreuzberg district that borders on East Berlin.

I don’t detect much of a cultural difference between the two Stammtisch groups. Both are predominantly made up of middle-aged and older Jews from the diaspora who sit around sipping wine and shmoozing for a few hours once a month. Their evening get-togethers may not rock the city, but they do provide Berlin’s Jews with an opportunity to explore shared family and historical connections.

As I chatted with a woman from Argentina at Seerose last week, we discovered that we each had a parent who fled Hamburg in the late 1930s, another parent from Hessen, and we both have cousins who live right near each other in Israel. A sweet older gentleman who was sitting with us (also from Argentina, but born in Berlin in 1936 and once again a Berliner) kept exclaiming “die ganze mishpocha!” as we continued the conversation and learned of other similarities in our family backgrounds.

“Die ganze mishpocha” is a Yiddish phrase that refers to an entire family network of relatives and even friends. Lots of Jewish Berliners bemoan the cultural and political divide between the City’s East European Jews and the much smaller group of us with German Jewish roots. But Berlin is still a place where anyone with a German Jewish background may find others who are a part of their mishpocha. Even if you don’t meet anyone from your mishpocha, those who you do meet will have their own fascinating stories to tell over a glass of wine, whether in the posh west or trendy east part of the City.

Finding my Niche in Cyberspace

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German Jews, Jewish community, Jewish identity

Last fall I attended my first PechaKucha Night in Bozeman. If you’re not familiar with PechaKucha, it’s a model for delivering presentations in a 20×20 format. The presenter shows 20 images for 2o seconds each, and gives remarks that are paced to match the length for each image on display. One of the presentations was on Robert Pirsig, author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Amidst all the fascinating facts about Pirsig, I was stunned to learn that he got 121 rejections for Zen before William Morrow Publishers accepted it. I was awed by Pirsig’s perseverance and chided myself to be more vigilant in seeking new outlets for my writing.

Fast forward to the 2012 holiday season. I spent a good deal of my spare time crafting pitches to publications that seemed like a good fit for my work. Then I spent too much time checking my email for responses that never arrived. Perhaps publishers took more time to actually write rejections in Pirsig’s pre-electronic age. Nowadays we’re so bombarded with e-communications that the ease of sending a reply just may not be worth the bother.  Zillions of online media sources do increase a writer’s chances of being published, but the difficulty of getting an editor’s attention in cyberspace is still an enormous challenge.

Eventually I did hear from both the Jewish Women’s Archive and Tikkun. The result is two short pieces about my search for a Jewish identity and sense of community in both the U.S. and Germany. Here are the links: Jewish Identity: A Round Trip Journey and Finding and Building Jewish Community in Germany.

Punch Card Judaism

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American Jews, Bar Mitzvah, German Jews, Jewish identity

The journey back from Berlin to Bozeman meant going back to being Jewish in America. This raised questions for me of whether I am more of a German Jew or an American Jew. I’d never found a congregation in the U.S. where I felt fully comfortable, but taking part in Jewish life in Berlin gave me a stronger connection to Judaism. My return to the States put the brakes on my Jewish identity journey for the time being.

Stepping back into Bozeman also meant a difficult decision about whether to rejoin our local congregation where we felt only partially at home. One of the first discussions I had with our rabbi after returning to Bozeman was about my daughter’s bat mitzvah. Olivia had been struggling for quite some time to decide if her coming of age ritual would be a bat mitzvah or something outside the Jewish faith. As I listened to the rabbi recite the long list of official guidelines, I was stunned to hear that she would be required to keep a punch card to mark her attendance at shabbat services. She would need to have ten punches on the card during the year leading up to her bat mitzvah, with no free coffee or hot chocolate to reward her at the end!  Since this discussion took place, I can’t seem to erase from my mind the image of my daughter holding up her punch card to the rabbi after Friday night services. 

Would my daughter really be more Jewish when the card was full? If she learned her Torah portion and the requisite prayers, why couldn’t she carve her own path to her bat mitzvah and Jewish adulthood? Wouldn’t a single profound experience at services be worth more than half a dozen boring ones? Judaism in America feels formulaic to me at times and the punch card rule symbolized a structure within which I often feel more constrained than inspired.

For now, Olivia has decided to postpone her bat mitzvah and that’s fine with me. She and I each have to find our own individual paths to a meaningful Jewish life, whether we live in Bozeman or Berlin.

Mein Koffer (Suitcase) in Berlin

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Berlin, German citizenship, German Jews, Holocaust

I often think  of the big canvas bag that I left with my friend Lyn just days ahead of our departure from Berlin. Packed with things I don’t really need, it sits in her closet as a symbol of my desire to return. Besides my “Koffer,” a part of my heart and soul are still in Berlin. At least I’ve still got my German citizenship and a bank account there too. I’m not sure when I’ll be able to walk around the Schlachtensee or visit the Turkish market in Kreuzberg again, but I hope it will be soon. I’m biding my time by studying German, hunting through the grocery stores of Bozeman for dark whole grain bread, and immersing myself in a hectic semester of teaching at Montana State.

I’m also looking forward to sharing my experiences with Americans who have an interest in modern Germany. My Montana Humanities program Germany’s Efforts to Confront the Legacy of the Holocaust is now available for groups in Montana and I’m making contact with Holocaust Education Centers to offer presentations on Jewish life in Germany today. With some of the recent tumultuous events in Germany, such as a regional court ruling against circumcision and the attack on a rabbi in our former district of Berlin, now is an especially important time for education and dialogue. While I’m disturbed by these events, they in no way diminish the significance of our German Jewish experiences or my commitment to chisel away at American attitudes that resist the reality of a changed Germany.