Three Generations Visit Hamburg

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Diaspora Jews, German Jews, Hamburg, second generation, third generation

Glass stars: Judische Gemeinde in Hamburg

34 of us came together in Hamburg last week from Israel, the U.S., England, Brazil, and Germany. Ranging in age from 9 (my son Sam) to 86, our shared connection was that we belonged to Jewish families who fled or were deported from Hamburg during the Nazi years. As guests of the Senate of Hamburg, we were treated to a week of cultural and historical excursions and events. And we had time to explore what little traces were left of our families’ residency in this beautiful city that was home to more than 20,000 Jews in the 1920s. The oldest member of our group, who had been deported to Riga, is once again a resident of Hamburg, where he now spends his summers.

The visitor programs in cities across Germany have been part of  the nation’s continuing efforts towards reconciliation. Hamburg’s program dates back to the 1970s and helped my mother come to terms with her disrupted childhood when she participated quite some years ago. But most of the programs have come to an end as the first generation of survivors has passed away. Hamburg and Frankfurt continue to invite the descendants of former residents to visit the places that so many of us learned so little about as we were growing up.

going to lunch in Rathaus Hamburg

As my sister, Sam and I rode around in a Mercedes bus from one historical point of interest to another, I tried to connect this visit with my family’s decision to live in Germany today. I feel safe and welcome in Berlin and I respect Germany’s extensive efforts to confront its atrocious past. But I know that not all immigrants to Germany feel as comfortable here as I do. I worry less about the future of Jews in Germany than I do about the future of ethnic groups that have been the target of the latest Neo-Nazi activities. I worry that Holocaust remembrance and reconciliation efforts are too far removed from Germany’s current integration challenges.

As the descendants of Holocaust survivors make the choice to visit Germany, I hope they will have the opportunity to learn about the concerns of this era while delving into their family histories. The younger generations are uniquely situated to grasp the connections between past and present.

The Unhinged Generation?

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German Jews, Holocaust, second generation, third generation

What is the role of the third generation in Holocaust remembrance and reconciliation? This is the question I am left with after reading Eva Hoffman’s thought-provoking book After Such Knowledge: Memory, History and the Legacy of the Holocaust. Hoffman tells us that the second generation is the hinge generation “in which received, transferred knowledge of events is transmuted into history, or into myth.” But as the connection to the Shoah becomes more tenuous for the grandchildren of survivors, and is less of a living connection, what is the third generation’s responsibility to grapple with this history and extract meaning from it?

Some of us feel a stronger desire to connect with our past than others. When my students were asked whether they would choose to time travel to the past or the future, most of them chose the future. I choose the past, still wanting to go back and learn more about my family’s pre-Holocaust history, even after nearly two years spent wading through the shadows of the past in Germany. I know there are many others like me. They even have their own organizations such as Grandchildren of Holocaust Survivors, which can be found on Facebook. There is also a growing body of literature on the third generation’s stories, reflections, and insights about the Shoah.

But despite the desire of many grandchildren of survivors to receive and interpret the memories and narratives of their parents and grandparents, my sense is that such sentiments are not the norm. Most of my cousins showed little interest in my own family research and discoveries. For those who do have interest, delving into such a distant past is not an easy undertaking. But as Hoffman stresses, it is our distance from the past that can be useful in developing perspectives and understandings that are not available to the victims. Far from indulging in victimhood, the third generation can still play an important role in reconciliation.

My hope is that the third generation will not be labeled the unhinged generation, the generation that has lost its connection to the past. Early in her book, Hoffman references an Israeli psychotherapist, Dina Wardi, who says that “in every survivor’s family, one child is chosen as a memorial candle….an instrument of commemoration, devotion, and mourning.” If this is the case for the second generation, I hope many of us who make up the third generation will continue to shine a light on our shared history in a way that will inform the present and benefit our future.