Chasing Memories in Washington Heights

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German Jews, Jewish identity

The last time I was in Washington Heights, New York, I must have taken the familiar drive with my parents over the George Washington Bridge from our home in White Meadow Lake, New Jersey. That was (I have to admit) almost fifty years ago. This time I took the uptown #1 train to Dyckman Street with my sister, cousin and daughter. Our mission: to find the building where our grandparents used to live on Thayer Street, the site of many happy childhood memories that linked me to my German Jewish heritage.

Despite encountering the largest number of garbage bags I may have ever seen on a city street, we strolled along in a bubble of nostalgic enthusiasm trying to identify the building where Nana Irma prepared mouth-watering meals for our extended family on all the Jewish holidays. Could it be number 54 or 56, we wondered? The similarity of most of the buildings complicated our search, necessitating a focus on the most minute differences in walkways, window ledges, and brick patterns. Suddenly cousin Debbie shouted out “98!” and two seconds later, there it was.

Looking slightly less care-worn than some of its neighbors, we immediately knew we’d found the right place. Approaching the front door, we peered in to the lobby and practically squealed over the familiar elevator and tile floor. Before we could even consider our next move, the front buzzer rang as if Nana Irma herself had seen us and granted us entry. We stepped inside and I remembered the excitement of rushing around the corner and up the few steps to the ground floor apartment where my nana and papa lived. We’d gotten this far so the next step was to retrace those long ago steps, and, yes, ring the doorbell.

The doorway to the past was literally opened by an incredibly gracious family who allowed the four of us to walk through the small, simple two-bedroom apartment. Fighting back tears in order to make polite conversation, I learned that they too felt at home in this rather humble setting. We stayed only a few minutes, just long enough to indulge our desire to touch the past and feel the presence of those long gone. The apartment was mostly as I remembered it, validating the mental images I’d clung to since I was a little girl.

We can’t travel back in time, but we can hold on to the past if we try.

Photos courtesy of Olivia Swarthout

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One Loss, Many Celebrations

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Bar Mitzvah, John F. Kennedy School Berlin, Juedisches Waisenhaus, Ohel Hachidusch

This year began with the death of my mother. My sister Andie and I are still adjusting to the fact that we no longer have parents. In April we brought mom to her final resting place next to our father in Bozeman, Montana.

In the middle of the year Olivia graduated with Honors from the John F. Kennedy School of Berlin and we celebrated at the Abitur Ball in Wannsee. She’s now headed to California for a gap year internship with Yosemite National Park. In September she will begin her studies at the University of Glasgow. She’s going to study Statistics!

In August we splurged on a family vacation in Gran Canaria to celebrate Andie’s sixtieth birthday. Everyone needed a break from work and studies so we stayed at a resort and spent a lot of time at the pool. We squeezed in a little bit of sightseeing too.

Sam’s bar mitzvah, led by Cantor Jalda Rebling at the Jüdisches Waisenhaus Berlin, was the biggest family event of the year. Andie had just moved to Santa Barbara when one of the worst fires in California history broke out. She left in the middle of the Thomas fire to be with us for Sam’s coming of age ceremony on December 16th. We’re also grateful that my brother-in-law Todd and his wife Barbara who live in Malawi took time out from their family vacation in Amsterdam to join us.

Another special bar mitzvah guest was my friend Mike, who I met through this blog. He drove all the way from Chalon-sur Saone, France in his rather ancient VW van to celebrate with us. Mike is a phenomenal photographer and human being. Please have a look at his photo-essay, Samuel Brian Swarthout Becomes a Bar Mitzvah, a beautiful gift to our family.

Thanks for reading my blog this year and best wishes for 2018.

Fragments from Shanghai

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German Jews, Shanghai Jews, Sonja Mühlberger

An entry in an address book: Goldstein, Erich, Oppeln, Plakatmaler, 153 Lisoyang.

That was the one fragmentary detail about my husband Brian’s family that we discovered during a pleasurable Sunday afternoon with Sonja Mühlberger. Sonja and Brian’s mother Maude were both born in Shanghai just a few months apart in 1939. Both girls were in utero during the passage to Shanghai, born into families who took refuge from the Nazis in one of the last available havens for German Jews. After looking through many photos to see if Brian could recognize a young Maude Goldstein (he couldn’t), Sonja showed us her copy of the 1939 address book where we found a listing for his Papa Erich.

Maude died when Brian was young so he never had a chance to learn much about her early childhood in Hongkou, Shanghai’s designated area for Jews. Sometimes referred to as the Shanghai Ghetto, it was a ghetto without walls, inhabited by Jews, Chinese, Russians, and a broad assortment of misfits and adventurers. Sonja told of a relatively happy childhood within this two and a half square kilometer area far from the land her parents missed and would return to after the war. Her recollections gave Brian some reassurance about his mother’s childhood and insight into what it must have been like.

Thanks to Sonja for sharing her stories with us, for opening a window into the life led by the mother-in-law I never met. We enjoyed visiting Sonja at her home in Friedrichshagen, the southeastern community of Berlin where she has lived since 1961. Her deep roots in the region were evident from the many people who greeted her when we strolled down to the Müggelsee after our Kaffee and Apfelkuchen.

If you’d like to learn more about Sonja, her story of survival in Shanghai is featured in the same Deutsche Welle German Jewish Cultural Heritage Series that our family participated in.

Jewish Voters: Were Your Families Divided?

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American Jews, German Jews

Are there other American families of German Jewish descent who found themselves on opposite sides in the U.S. presidential election? I’m still trying to wrap my head around how one of my relatives who fled Nazi Germany in 1938 supported the president-elect. I’ve pored through many articles to gain an understanding of what seems so incomprehensible. Why did nearly one third of Jewish voters support Trump? Will voter remorse settle in after the deportations begin? How will Jewish supporters react to the already growing number of hate crimes? And how will they explain away the appointment of a chief White House strategist with ties to white supremacists?

The quest for a rational answer to these questions is unnerving, but it doesn’t compare to the emotional pang of discovering that a member of your family is spreading false, hate-filled, and racist news stories and memes. As one relative’s steady stream of offensive social media posts grew, my sister and I ultimately realized that we were looking at a hard right member of our family who was overtly xenophobic if not outright racist. Ideological differences that had been simmering under a covered pot for years were suddenly exposed in the glaring light of Facebook. “What now?” we keep asking ourselves and each other.

Like millions of others I am seeking constructive ways to move forward. Attending Berlin’s anti-Trump protest over the weekend and making a donation to the Southern Poverty Law Center were first steps. My sister has also become politically activated and engaged. But I’m not quite ready to reconcile with family members who expressed views that I believe are immoral. I need some more time before taking that step.

A few weeks ago I wrote a Holocaust-related piece titled Why Don’t We Talk More About Reconciliation? I wasn’t thinking about family relationships at the time, but the sources I consulted may offer guidance for finding a path towards peaceful coexistence with parties who face each other across a deep chasm —  families included.

L.A. Dispatch

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elderly care, Germany, Vintage Burbank

I’ve been in Los Angeles for over a week now and can’t seem to stop talking to strangers. I guess my extroverted nature has been bursting for air, leading me to shed the artificial reserve that serves me well for daily life in Germany. I also find myself wanting to board the occasional bus that I see pulling up to empty street corners with nary a smoker waiting to get on board. I’ve had my fill of crime stories, entertainment news, and sales tax, but can’t get enough of pumpkin scones, iced drinks, and free toilets.

Sami has to move too.

I’m here because of an urgent need to move my mother to a new residence. It seems that Vintage Burbank, the upscale facility that we chose for her just over a year ago, cannot currently provide the level of care that we were assured she would be able to receive when we signed a contract and paid their hefty entrance fee. Her monthly expenses have now tripled due to a decline in her health and the outside care we have been required to obtain. The emotional strain of wrenching her out of her new home combined with the financial stress of our situation have made this trip to sunny California something less than a vacation.

I am convinced that the corporate “bottom line” is behind the facility’s lack of effort to help find a workable solution for our family. Would this have happened in Germany? Something to look into after my return to Berlin next week.

More of a Frankfurter than a Hamburger

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Altwiedermus, Biebesheim, Diaspora Jews, Frankfurt Jews, German Jews, Holocaust

If you’re not a banker, you might not have much of a reason to visit Frankfurt am Main. But my sister and I just participated in the city’s “Visiting Program for Former Jewish Citizens and their Descendants.” No longer novices in the art of tracing our family history, we didn’t go to Frankfurt expecting to uncover any new nuggets of information about our father’s family. Instead, we made the trip to learn more about the region’s Jewish history, connect with the other German Jewish families, and spend time together. Our week of peering into the past with our fellow group members had many highlights, but the biggest highlight was the discovery that some of them were related to us.

During the first night of the program, my sister thought she heard one of the participants mention the Wachenheimers from Biebesheim. But it wasn’t until the end of the week that we determined they were the very same Wachenheimers who also married into our own Adler family from Altwiedermus. While my father’s family fled to the U.S. in the 1930s, this branch of the Wachenheimer family fled to Argentina, and their descendants were members of our group. I think both of our families were emotionally stunned by this unanticipated connection. We’re now quite happy to embrace these newest members of our extended familia!

As the descendants of former Jewish residents of both Frankfurt and Hamburg, my sister and I have had the opportunity to participate in both cities’ visiting programs (see Three Generations visit Hamburg). Hamburg is by far the more beautiful of the two cities, but our family’s roots in the Frankfurt area are much deeper. The many Frankfurt program officials, educators, researchers and Jewish community members who spent the last week with us are quite dedicated to helping Jewish families re-connect with their roots. This reconnection to the place where Anne Frank was born and where 30,000 Jewish residents lived before the Nazi era is an important part of the continuing efforts towards Holocaust reconciliation.

I’m back in Berlin where I’m feeling almost as much a Frankfurter as a Berliner, with a little bit of Hamburger mixed in as well. In case you missed the recent piece I wrote for the Jewish Writing Project, here’s the link: Where I’ll Celebrate Passover Next Year

“Home Sweet Home”

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American Jews, Berlin, German Jews, Israel

Coming back to Berlin from Israel last month was a journey back home, a journey to a familiar and comfortable place, but one that is not my native land. My strong connection to Germany wavers at times. Like the other day at the grocery store when I patiently waited behind a woman as she went through the stack of baskets looking for one that met her hygienic standards. When I finally reached in to take one for myself, she snatched the basket out of my hand and let slip a rude remark. I stifled the urge to call her a bitch and calmly walked away. Perhaps this could happen anywhere, but I’ve never before encountered such aggression over a grocery basket.

People in Israel were more open and relaxed than I expected. I felt a kinship with all those short women with wild and frizzy hair and the older women with bright lipstick and flashy jewelry transported me back to my childhood on the East Coast. I also agree with my daughter that a lot of the men were “smokin.” But beyond these fleeting impressions, I developed a better understanding of Zionism through Simon Schama’s excellent BBC series The Story of the Jews, which we watched during the trip. I now have a connection to Israel, not so much as a Zionist, but as another place where I feel at home and where a cherished part of my family lives.

My feelings about Israel were refracted through the triplicate lens of my German-American-Jewish self. I’m glad that I finally made the trip that so many American Jews call upon us to make, if only to gain a better footing in political discussions about Israeli policies and the Middle East. As a German, I also felt proud to be among the many tourists who are promoting close cross-cultural ties between the two countries.

I hope to go back to Israel before long, but it probably won’t be for Passover. Stay tuned for a piece on The Jewish Writing Project with a few further reflections on that topic.

The Push-Me Pull-You of Israel

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Diaspora Jews, Israel, Jewish identity, Passover

It will take some time to unravel the twisted knot of emotions that wove its way through me over the nine days we spent in Israel. My sensory delight in the sweet smell of jasmine, the warm and inviting limestone architecture, the abundant sunshine, and the rich tastes of hummus and falafel expanded during each day of the trip. While my senses enjoyed this daily barrage of gifts, my brain was constantly working overtime to fill in the multi-colored canvas that is Israel. Each day the land and the people drew me in, but not without moments when my buttons were pushed and I drew back. I felt a bit like Dr. Doolittle’s pushmi-pullyu, the gazelle-unicorn whose two heads try to go in opposite directions whenever it moves.

The highlight of our trip was spending time with our cousins who we first met in 2011, but with whom we already share a deep bond (see Shrinking the Family Diaspora). That bond was strengthened as we picked up where we left off three years ago and wrote a new family history into the moments we spent together. But sadness and even anger bubbled up within me while trying to make sense of the ultra-orthdox Jews whose demeanor and conduct sent a loud message that said “keep away — you are not one of us.” Driving through the Mea She’arim area and provoking the rage of its residents was probably a bad idea, but even worse was the feeling we had while walking around Jerusalem of being invisible in the eyes of those who are a part of our history but who reject us as Jews.

Visiting Israel during Passover made it more challenging for us to connect with Jewish life since our family is fairly secular and does not keep kosher for the holiday. We often found ourselves gravitating toward Arabic areas and had our most spiritually uplifting experience at the Ethiopian Orthodox Church in Jerusalem on Easter Sunday. Although we spoke with no one during our brief visit, we felt not only welcome and accepted, but also a sense of peace that spoke of the human potential that has yet to be achieved in the Middle East. I hope to share some further reflections as I unravel my thoughts and emotions and try to get my head pointed in just one direction.

Peace and Harmony

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AVIVA-Berlin, Berlin, Hessen Jews, Holocaust

One of the nice things about living in Berlin is that ordinary events tend to be held in extraordinary places. When I was asked by AVIVA-Berlin to give a brief presentation about my great-aunt Meta Adler who was a Holocaust victim, I had no idea I would be delivering my remarks in Rathaus Charlottenburg. Like many parts of Berlin, Charlottenburg was formerly an independent city in the Prussian province of Brandenburg. Construction of this ornate town hall took place while Meta was a young girl, but the building suffered severe damage during World War II. Rebuilt after the war, the Rathaus seemed a fitting place to share Meta’s story with a small audience that came to learn about AVIVA’s “Writing Girls” project.

This year I didn’t uncover any family secrets on a par with my 2011 discovery of my aunt who was left behind when my father’s family fled Germany. Things seem to be in a state of harmony in my family for the time being. Of course that could change at the end of the month when I make a quick trip to visit my mother in her new assisted living home in California. But for now I feel a sense of peace as the year draws to a close and we are firmly settled back in Berlin.  That sense of peace is reflected in this photo taken in the Black Forest by my friend and Fellow Traveler Michael Staubes.

Traveling Scholar

Tags

Berlin

I wish I had gotten a picture. We were on a crowded U-bahn train on our way to a Simchat Torah service, and Avery was studying torah, preparing to read the same lines from the first day of Creation that he had read for his bar mitzvah two years ago. We were standing in a small crowd, the man next to me was giving a German lesson to an Italian teenager, while most of the other passengers were absorbed with their electronic devices or newspapers. I couldn’t take a picture because Avery was studying torah on my phone, having snapped a shot of his parshah just as we were leaving our apartment. But the moment of watching my son read torah on a smart phone on the U-9 will remain etched in my memory for a long time.

I felt at home at that moment on the train. And I marveled that I had a son who gave up his usual teenage pursuits to celebrate a minor Jewish holiday on a week night. Avery handed me back my phone just as we arrived at the church on Detmolder Straße where the service would take place. I quickly snapped a few shots before we rushed in and took our seats. It turned out that Avery was well prepared for his reading and stepped into his role as a Jewish adult in Berlin with ease.

And that is how the transition has been for all of us, an easy adjustment to a city where migrants make up around twenty-five percent of the population. The school year routines already feel as predictable as the Berlin rain showers and are allowing me time to pursue career opportunities. I’ve got some pretty good job prospects, but wait….next week begins our Herbstferien (10 days of fall vacation). I guess I’m still getting used to a very different schedule for the school year.