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.

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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.

Raindrops and Tears

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Altwiedermus, Bar Mitzvah, German Jews, Holocaust, stolpersteine

Perhaps if it hadn’t rained so much I wouldn’t have cried so much. But the rain gave such a sombre tone to the day of my great-aunt Meta’s memorial. A Stone for Meta has now become a reality.  Meta’s stolperstein was placed in front of her former home in Altwiedermus on July 2nd. On this day we honored her memory and restored her to our family. Within the warm embrace of the Ronneburg community, we said kaddish (the Jewish mourners’ prayer) for Meta for the first time and will do so each year on this date.

Amidst the grief and sorrow of the day there was also closure and a spark of joy. Our son Avery, who became a bar mitzvah last year, radiated strength and calm as he stood next to me on the steps of the Adler family’s former home. Avery provided me with a solid embrace as I struggled to speak for Meta and he led the kaddish for her. He has indeed become a Jewish adult and is ready to assume a leadership role within the next generation of our family. Stay tuned for an upcoming article with further reflections on the significance of reclaiming lost memories.

Rewriting Family History

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Altwiedermus, Bar Mitzvah, German Jews, Hessen Jews, Holocaust, stolpersteine

It’s been almost a year since our family history tour took us to Altwiedermus. And it’s taken about that long to process most of what we learned on that important trip.  The stunning discovery that I had a great-aunt Meta who was left in Frankfurt when my father’s family emigrated to the U.S. reverberated for weeks after our return to Berlin. Our trip into the past shed new light on my German Jewish family history and raised many new questions about my family.

There were two outcomes from this trip. One was the decision to dig into my family’s past and learn why I had never been told about Meta. This was something I tended to only sporadically over the past year when I had time. I still don’t have a clear answer and only very slowly came to understand that there was an unspoken family rule to remain silent about Meta. I’ve learned not to take the previous generation’s account of the past for granted and will soon share a piece I’ve written about the experience of uncovering Meta’s story.

The other outcome was our decision to create a memorial for Meta. This has been slightly more straightforward than my efforts to dig into the past. Our family has been deeply impacted by the stolpersteins (brass stumbling stone memorials) scattered across Germany and other European countries. We felt Meta should have her own stolperstein.  I honed my German language skills during months of countless emails to discover the details of Meta’s fate and seek approval to place a cobblestone memorial in the ground for her. Our son Avery also learned Meta’s story and then raised the 120 euros for her stone as part of his preparation to become a bar mitzvah.

On July 2, 2012 Meta’s stolperstein will be laid in Altwiedermus. The Ronneburg community plans eleven stones for Altwiedermus and Huettengesaess. These will be the first stolpersteins in this rural Hessen area and the artist Gunter Demnig will be present to mark the occasion.  Our family will be there as well. I’m grateful to many people in Germany, including readers of this blog, for helping us learn what happened to Meta. Her stone will join the more than 32,000 stolpersteins dedicated to victims of the Holocaust.

A German American Jewish Celebration

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Bar Mitzvah, Berlin, German Jews, Holocaust, Juedisches Waisenhaus, Ohel Hachidusch

A boy becomes an adult and reclaims his family’s place on the soil from which his ancestors fled two generations ago.  Berlin’s former Jewish orphanage, with its historic prayer hall, marks the first bar mitzvah since the Shoah.  Ohel Hachidusch, a congregation outside Berlin’s mainstream Jewish community, embraces its first son of the commandments.  A father weeps to see his first-born step with confidence into adulthood.  A mother aches with joy as she stands on the bima, the living link between the father she’s lost and her son who is his namesake.

These were the heavy layers of symbolic meaning that enveloped Avery’s bar mitzvah last weekend.  But the deep significance of the occasion didn’t keep us from having a fun and rowdy celebration.  Avery got hammered with German and American candy at the end, and sustained a pretty strong hit on the forehead from a rock hard treat thrown by his little brother.  I think Avery and one of his buddies also got hammered with a secretly made potion of wine and iced tea!  

Avery chose to have his coming of age on the anniversary of my father’s bar mitzvah.  He wore the tallit (prayer shawl) my father wore 69 years ago when he was first called to the Torah.  But as the service drew to a close Olivia dazzled us all by presenting her brother with a beautiful silk tallit she made by hand for him.  As Cantor Jalda said, “Avery should step into the future wearing his own tallit, not schlepping the burden of his grandfather on his shoulders!”

It was a day of profound peace and joy for me.  As my son chanted his Torah portion in a clear and resonant Hebrew that apparently carried no trace of an American accent, I saw the beauty of a ritual that ties all Jews together.  Sharing that ritual with our mostly non-Jewish friends from Berlin (as well as our family from Amsterdam and two dear friends from the U.S.) gave us a sense of belonging in our new community so far away from Montana.  We are indeed a “German American Jewish family” that is comfortable following our beliefs in both countries that we call home.

Photos courtesy of Bill Slaton.

Choosing our Rites of Passage

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American Jews, Bar Mitzvah, Berlin, German citizenship, German Jews, Judaism

A stroll through the Britzer Gardens in southern Berlin was the aesthetic highlight of a weekend filled with bar mitzvah tasks, household chores, and the usual mishaps and disputes between the kids.  With over 200 types of dahlias in full bloom, we were treated to a spectacular show of color that soothed our jangled nerves.  I think we can now handle the home stretch of bar mitzvah planning and clothes shopping without a full family meltdown.

Avery's bar mitzvah kippah

Avery will become a bar mitzvah in less than three weeks and I feel a sense of pride and wonder that he is on the threshold of such a significant event.  As a “son of the commandments” Avery will be well prepared to lead a Jewish life and to make responsible adult choices.  By choosing to have his bar mitzvah in Berlin, Avery will help a new generation of our family take its place in Germany’s growing Jewish community (see Becoming a Bar Mitzvah in Berlin’s Jewish Orphanage).  His bar mitzvah, on the anniversary of my father’s, will forge a link to the past and lead our family on a new path to the future.  Coming at the same time as the approval of our German citizenship, I feel a greater sense of comfort as a resident of the country that my parents were forced to flee.

I’ve always been a little jealous of people who have had a bar or bat mitzvah, mostly because of their ability to read Hebrew and to accurately recite the prayers that sound so beautiful and that I still struggle with.  I envy their participation in a rite of passage that I never went through.  Maybe I am not religious because I just don’t know how to be religious, was never properly initiated into my own religion, and still feel somewhat like an outsider when I sit with my community in a synagogue.  Getting older only increases my sense of discomfort (I should know this stuff by now!).

Perhaps I will be inspired by my son and decide to have my own bat miztvah. Perhaps not.  At least I will feel comfortable choosing to have this rite of passage either in the U.S. or Germany. And I will admire my son for the courage he’s shown in making his own choices.

Becoming a Bar Mitzvah in Berlin’s Jewish Orphanage

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Bar Mitzvah, Berlin, German Jews, Judaism, Juedisches Waisenhaus

Ohel Hachidusch, the Jewish congregation we attend in Berlin, is a very small congregation that meets in a pleasant church in our neighborhood.  After choosing a bar mitzvah date for our son Avery we were surprised to discover that the church would not be available on that day.  This planning malfunction turned out to be a true blessing in disguise when Cantor Jalda Rebling (Avery’s bar mitzvah teacher) suggested we have the bar mitzvah at the Juedisches Waisenhaus Berlin (former Jewish Orphanage of Berlin).

I cannot imagine a more auspicious venue for a bar mitzvah than a historic building devoted to the welfare of Jewish children. Built in 1912/13, the orphanage operated until 1940. After Kristallnacht many of the children were brought to safety via Kindertransport. The Nazis closed the building in 1942 and deported all remaining occupants to concentration camps. As far as I can tell from what I have read in German, the building languished for years, but was eventually restored and finally reopened in 2001. 

The Juedisches Waisenhaus today has a library and an elementary school in addition to the beautifully restored prayer hall.  Avery’s bar mitzvah in October will be the first to take place in the Waisenhaus since it reopened.

A Stone for Meta

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Altwiedermus, Bar Mitzvah, German Jews, Hessen Jews, Holocaust, Judaism, stolpersteine

My Great-Aunt Meta Adler

We know almost nothing about her and that will never change. But she will be remembered. We must rely on our imaginations to fill in the enormous gaps about her life in Germany before the “final solution” became her fate. And we can imagine her new life in America, if only the U.S. government had approved her application to emigrate with the rest of my father’s family.

What we do know is that she was an unmarried Jewish woman who worked as a maid and was too shy or scared to give satisfactory answers to the questions that determined eligibility for emigration to the U.S.  According to my Aunt Ellen, my grandmother was forced to send Meta back to Frankfurt after the rest of the family was granted permission to emigrate in 1938.  At the age of 44 Meta returned to Frankfurt without any personal resources. She spent another four years there, was eventually forced into a Judenhaus, and then deported in May 1942. We have tried without success to find out where she was deported to and her date of death.

Later this year we will place a stolperstein (brass stumbling stone) in Frankfurt for Meta. This stone, placed at the site of Meta’s last freely chosen residence, will join the more than 25,000 others throughout Europe (see Stolpersteine: Stones to Remember). Pedestrians who tread on Meta’s stone will have the opportunity to reflect on another Holocaust victim.  Meta’s stone will also represent the 13 Jews of Altwiedermus and my paternal ancestors whose lives were obliterated by the Nazis. Our son Avery, who will have his bar mitzvah in Berlin this October, will raise the 95 euros for Meta’s memorial stone as his bar mitzvah project.

Stolpersteine…….Stones to Remember

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Bar Mitzvah, Berlin, German Jews, Germany, Holocaust, Judaism, stolpersteine

stolpersteine near our apartment

The rich cultural attractions of Jewish life in Berlin are so plentiful that it is easy to initially overlook one small but remarkable feature of the urban landscape: stolpersteine. Berlin is one of hundreds of European communities where pedestrians can tread across stolpersteine, brass stumbling stones that are designed to remember individual victims of the Holocaust.  The thousands of cobblestone memorials throughout Germany and Europe were designed by artist Gunter Demnig who conceived the project in 1993.  Demnig’s 4 inch memorials are a powerful  contrast to Berlin’s vast and imposing Holocaust Memorial which purposely omits the names of Holocaust victims.

stolperstein for Salomon Schlome

Each stolperstein contains just enough information about the victim to unleash our imagination about the life that was lost: a name, birth date, and the date and location of deportation and death if it is available.  The stones are generally placed in front of the last known freely chosen residence of the victim. While Demnig’s intent is not to place 6 million stones throughout Europe, there is a concerted effort to memorialize homosexuals, Gypsies, and political victims of the Holocaust, as well as Jews.

As our family has gradually become attuned to the presence of the stolpersteine, we’ve begun to think about taking part in this international effort to remember. It is time for Avery to choose a humanitarian project to undertake for his bar mitzvah and this is one option that he is seriously considering. The time, effort, and research involved in adding one stone to the thousands already in place might touch his life more deeply than a film, book, or museum exhibit could.

The stolpersteine have not been placed without controversy over impacts on property values and businesses, and some Jews have questioned whether stepping on the names of the victims is an appropriate way to remember them. Individual communities have used the democratic process to determine whether the stones should have a place in the streets of their cities and towns. There are now more than 25,000 stolpersteine on ground once dominated by the Nazis.  Perhaps our family will add one more.

stolperstein for Paula Guttman

stolperstein for Elly Schlome

Namesakes

Tags

American Jews, Bar Mitzvah, Berlin, Germany, Holocaust, Jews

Avery Erwin Swarthout was named after his papa, Erwin Joseph Adler.  Yesterday Avery went into a church in Altstadt Spandau (while I rested on a bench) and lit a candle in memory of his papa. Somehow this didn’t surprise me………..Avery has always heard that he takes after his papa and that he carries papa’s spirit within him as I do.  My father (“papa” to our kids) died 7 years ago when Avery was 5, Olivia was not yet 3, and Sam had just been born in Ethiopia.

Avery looks like his papa and carries the same twinkle in his eye that is destined to charm the girls and women who will play a role in his future escapades. But the resemblance does not stop there.  Avery has daily dreams of cheese cake, wurst, and specialty coffee drinks as did papa before he became a low-fat fanatic.  Avery’s happy disposition becomes happier when he can make googly eyes at a baby during a chance encounter. Papa did the same. An even more stunning, perhaps genetic, similarity is that Avery is soaking up German words as if they were cheesecake and has got a pretty good accent to boot. My dad was born in Altwiedermuss, Germany in 1929 and though his family fled the Nazis, he loved speaking his mother tongue his whole life.

Although I am not named after my dad, I am like him in may ways too.  Leaving the place where my dad is buried and going to his birthplace have brought me both fresh feelings of grief but also moments of powerful connection.  I cannot physically journey to the past, but this journey to where his life began more than 80 years ago does give me the feeling of coming “full circle.”