Deutschland

Germany Germany Germany

Welkommin. Germany was an extraordinary emotional, intellectual, aesthetic and tasty treat as well as a struggle. There is an enormous amount to say, so I suppose ill just dive right in. This blog is going to look a little different from the rest. There is going to be much more of just straight stream of consciousness and a lot of talk of my struggle being in Germany and less straight itinerary.

To start it off is a piece of writing we all had to do right before our trip in which we discussed why it was that we were coming to Germany.

You need to not simply pay lip service to these things you need to really struggle with it all
There exists in the Jewish world a stigma surrounding Germany. After World War II, there subsequently formed a taboo to buy German products, support German companies, visit Germany, or in its most severe forms, to even discuss Germany. The end result is both a self-imposed ignorance and an alienation of knowledge. Thus making the importance of visiting and learning about Germany even more important. . We must not allow ourselves to become passively myopic to the world and actively escape our, for lack of a better word – or perhaps most pertinently, ghetto. This is a fundamental aspect of Kivunim’s philosophy and is one I have come to embrace. It is for these two reasons, the importance of distancing myself from the harmful stigma and remaining an active member of the international community, that this international trip is so important.

It is of extreme importance not to fall into the ghetto, the stigmas and taboos. It is far too easy to put up those walls, the temptation is great, but the dangers are far greater. There are those on this trip that have allowed themselves, or their parents have, to fall into that stigma. In my mind, the only thing that this creates, is a self-imposed limited thought; self created myopia.
Right after getting off the plane, I ran up to one of my madrichim Hannah and was bouncing with excitement. Seeming less excited, I asked her what was up. She said “I’m really uncomfortable with it all”. The moment the plane landed, simply seeing German writing was very weird for her. Right next to our hotel was a Kosher café called Beth Café. In a conversation later that day with Hannah, she admitted that she almost expected there to be broken class in the Beth café window.

One of many problems here is that the only thing my generation is taught about Germany is 1933-1945. First reactions to the German language are fear. Thoughts of Berlin are sinister. Few of my generation can think of a Germany separate from that of the perpetrator of the horror stories they have heard from their relatives. This is just another one of the many problems of the vicious cycle. When we as a people continue to teach only the Holocaust, don’t buy German products, and don’t visit the country we are only stirring up and fostering more and more animosity, and creating stereotypes that we, ourselves, continue to be victims to.

We have an enormous amount in common with German youth. Both Israeli youth and, I’m sure, the German youth are feeling:

Stop with the holocaust. We get it. We have acknowledged its enormous influence on our lives, our history, our society and our people but we need to allow it to influence and not take over. We need to take it and grow from it.

Much of the German youth are saying that they are done having it be a burden on our souls. Germans have been the subject of animosity, pity, hate and destruction for the past 100 years. ‘We have had enough of that. Let us grow from this without it overwhelming our being. Berlin especially is a city reborn. 20 years old. Israel is only 60. ‘
So too, Israelis feel similar things:
Stop with the holocaust. We get it. WE ARE NOT VICTIMS. We are not the people that were in the camps. We are sabras. Stop treating me like that my grandparents, or even great grandparents.
the two groups share a wish to be reborn.


Day 1
Our first day in Berlin we spent mostly doing a bus tour through the city. Among other sites, we visited the famous Berlin memorial to the Holocaust. The memorial is different from most. It consists of thousands of cement pillars set up in relatively straight lines. The pillars are arranged at different heights and the floor is also crooked and at oscillating heights. It’s extremely overwhelming. As you walk through, you see how huge it is, how the giant pillars looming above you are imposing. You feel slightly sick to your stomach and very overwhelmed.
A few of the reasons this memorial is different from others: there is no clear sign signifying what the memorial is to. There is an explanation of sorts to the memorial, but it requires going downstairs, underground, and there is no real direction to do so. Therefore, most people either have to figure it out on their own, or already know what it is to.

The second, seemingly simple but profound, difference is that the Berlin memorial is to ‘the murder Jews of Europe’. This contrasts with, for example, the Washington memorial which is to ’11 million victims of Nazism’. Many memorials struggle with how to phrase the remembrance. The Berlin memorial is a direct phrasing: Jews were murdered. Near by is a memorial to the homosexuals murdered during WWII. That memorial consists of a giant concrete block in a nearby park with a small hole. As you peer into the hole you see a looped video clip of two men kissing. The theme of the Berlin memorials is simplicity.

As I was walking through the memorial, I had flashback to my experience in Poland. I remember thinking as I walked out of the gas chambers of Majdonik, how I felt that nature was mocking me. As I walked out of the most miserable place in the world, I saw dandelions and green grass; the sun was shining and it was a beautiful day outside. From the inside of a terrible place, from the center of a shockingly overwhelming and powerful memorial, all you could see were the tall, beautiful green trees that surrounded it.

Just around the block from the memorial is the space where the Nazi’s headquarters buildings once stood. Almost immediately after the fall of the Nazi party, Berliners knocked down every Nazi building. This exhibits a sentiment that the Germans have been feeling for decades: shame, partially out of the animosity of the world, and seeking pity. The very land surrounding the memorial was once inhabited by the SS headquarters, Hitler’s bunker, the Foreign Affairs office was nearby, as well as the headquarters of the Gestapo.

After seeing the Holocaust memorial, we went west into west Berlin. There we visited a long lasting department store called KaDaWe. Before Kristalnacht and the Nuremburg laws, it was here that the Nazis first targeted the Jews. Many of the stores of this famous department store were owned by Jews with overtly Jewish names. However, this was not a sociological, or historical lesson; it was for exploring. I sat down for a glass of wine and a cheese sampling plate as well as some Culatello mairalarte. Super delish.

Day 2
Our second day in Berlin started with a local walking tour of the Jewish quarter. From here we visited local shuls, holocaust memorials put up by Berliners, not the government, and explored a little. We discovered very quickly that Berlin is an extremely beautiful and modern city. For many it was their first time seeing such a place. Yet, there was something very odd about being there. Never mind the Nazi aspect, from across the city one could see the spire of the New Synagogue. This shul was damaged years and years ago to be rebuilt in the 1960’s. an incredibly ornate and beautiful shul, it stands quite, quite tall and proud in Berlin’s new city.
Across Berlin there are many Holocaust memorials. Some as overt as the one I just described and some as simple as a brick on the street. Literally. All over city, and over the country, there are memorial bricks on the sidewalk with the names and those Jews that were taken from that particular building. Instead of a large, imposing blast to the horribleness, these bricks serve as a more creeping reminder of the people that died. As a I said before, its required that we remember names not numbers, and this type of memorial does just that.

I decided on this walking tour that I was going to write my end of the year essay about European Jews, with a focus on German Jews, and the stigmas and taboos that surround them as well as, what I would describe as the hypocrisy towards the attitude regarding them. I would describe how the attitude towards these Jews is simple: take your culture and leave; come join us in Israel or the States but leave your home. This approach is often a passive idea. Yet at the same time there is a very active, aggressive town taken towards the area. There is often very aggressive rhetoric used: There is rising anti-semetism in Europe and we need to fight it, and if we don’t battle it off we shall perish as Jews. Similarly the approach to German Jews is passively learn about the Holocaust and encourage Jews of Germany to immigrate but to actively hate the Germans and boycott their country. Just a few thoughts.

One thing you notice immediately about Berlin is an enormous amount of light. Unlike NYC, which as one Kivunim participate described as ‘a city of hallways’, there is a huge amount of open air and tons of light flooding the city. I suppose its similar to other European cities and I’ve just fallen in love, but it’s a very aesthetically and emotionally pleasing effect.

Day 3
Oh boy. Today was a day. Today I saw the entire city of Berlin, or so it felt.
First we walked across the city to go to a beautiful new shul. The shul was massive. Only finished in the last few years, the place was incredible. After shul we were off to luch.We had lunch with German-Jewish youth at the Lauder foundation in Berlin. After lunch, we went to the Pergamon museum. This place is huge. Much of the contents of the museum are acquisitions Germany sought in the late 19th century when a national pride became competitive with that of France and England. In order to compete with the Louvre, Uffizi, Museum in London, Germany had to both amass a respectable amount of art and history as well as establish itself as a culture beacon in Europe. Besides for the hugely enormous and hugely magnificent remains of the Temple at Pergamon (a roman fort in what is now Turkey), there are two other incredible sights. The more amazing of the two (in my opinion) is the gate of Babylon. Never mind the sheer size of the gates and inner walls, the beauty is literally breath-taking. The walls are a rich blue with yellows and reds. The walls look like a massive mosaic composed of colored bricks. The gate was given to Germany, that had been excavating the site in Iraq by the Iraqi government as a gift. And boy is it some gift.

Immediately after the museum we were off on another adventure. Given a few hours of free time, I recruited a group to go explore the Berlin wall, or at least what remains of it. I was also fortunate enough to bring along our teacher and guide Shalmi. We began to walk towards the Potsdamerplatz, a very modern area with, among other things, a few sections of the Berlin wall. We followed a path that snakes throughout the city, two bricks wide, that traces where the Berlin wall stood. From the Potsdamerpltaz we went to the nearby Sony Center. This beautiful piece of architecture was built in the midst of Berlin’s rebirth. In trying to rebuild the city and establish itself as a modern society, there remained a large plot of land that was completely abandoned. As part of this effort redevelop east Berlin, the famous architect Helmut Jahn was brought in to design a project funded by Sony. The finished product is simply stunning.

We then continued to walk around East Berlin, allowing ourselves to get lost. We indulged ourselves in some of the best ice cream Berlin has to offer before strolling back in the general direction of home. On our way we walked past another expanse of the wall, this time practically a full city block long. The wall is very powerful, even now in its shambled state. Right behind this expanse of wall, is the site where the Gestapo headquarters was. Throughout my trip I would play with the idea of what the city would look like decorated with Nazi flags and with soldiers patrolling the streets; Gestapo running around and, most embarrassingly, myself with a yellow Jewish star pinned to my chest. This made experiences such as visiting the ruins of old headquarters buildings extremely interesting. Here were the ruins of the very scenes I was picturing in my head.

We finally get back to the hotel after a long day on our feet. We then do havdallah in the hotel courtyard. Now this could either go without commentary or a mental meltdown at the profundity of it all – ill go for the short commentary. The fact that a group of American-Jews living in Israel were singing at the top of our lungs niggunim in BERLIN, the hub of the most evil atrocities ever committed against Jews, only 64 years after the fall of Nazism is quite profound.
After Havdallah Ben and I decided we wanted to find meat for dinner. We asked one of our guides where we should go. She said we should walk to Alexanderplatz, to a restaurant called Block House and implied it was right around the corner. So we walked. And walked. Then asked directions. Then walked. Then asked directions again. Then walked. After about an hour of walking our legs collapsed beneath us in front of the giant TV tower at Alexanderplatz. With our legs in pain, ben with a stiff neck, we finally finally found our restaurant. As we plop down, our waiter comes over and asks us where we’re from. ‘oh! The states! You must try our German beer! Try this wheat beer, its very delicious.’ Who are we to say no? as the beer arrives we notice on the mug it says Paulener. We think – ‘no, it must just be the mug’. After our first sip we were sure it was in fact Paulener.
We drink Paulener as our beer of choice at the bar around the corner from us Jerusalem.
We just traveled across the world and city… for a Paulener.

Sunday May 3rd
Early in the morning, we took off for the Wannsee villa. About an hour outside of Berlin, it was here that the Nazi Party met to decide on a solution to the so called Jewish question. The coated euphemism of the ‘final solution to the Jewish Question’ was a term used to deliver to the German public as clear propaganda by Goebbels. Here, 15 men stood around a table at the request of Görring, the Nazi Party’s second in command, and conceived of a pragmatic, efficient and thorough plan to eliminate 11 million Jews of Europe. Adolf Eichman, deputy of the SS proposed ideas and needed the support and political co-operation of the other 14 Nazi leaders. Among other pieces of information, he provided the other men with a list breaking down the countries and areas of Europe and the number of Jews in each. A page, distributed at the conference, instructed that ‘after your breakfast, please join us in the conference room for the meeting’. After a light meal, the 15 men decided the murdering was the only effective means. The Nazis had tried to encourage immigration to other countries. It was not the real intent of the Nazis, at least originally, to kill the Jews. They simply wanted the Jews to not be in Germany; to disappear. Many Germans, although may have been happy if they could get the professorial job they were hoping for that the Jew got and would be pleased if the Jew was gone, did not want a extermination of the Jews. The majority of Germans, and even Nazi Party officials, were not overtly anti-Semitic. However, after war (especially with the invasion of Poland) they were forced to find a more effective means of ‘handling’ the Jews and it was decided at this conference, that the best way of doing this would be systematic killings.

From the Wannsee Villa, we traveled straight to Track 17. It was from here that the majority of Berlin Jews were sent to concentration camps all around Germany and annexed German land. Right along side the platform were metal plaques identifying the number of Jews sent, the date and where they were being sent to. A typical plaque would read “May 3rd 1942 / 31 Juden/ Auschwitz”. I experienced a very serious Poland flashback; Images and memories from my trip to Poland and the true horror that still exists there now. It was from this point, families said goodbye; where cultures, generations and whole societies disappeared. It is memorials like this that are extremely powerful reminders of the enormity of the atrocities. 6,000,000, a impossibly foreign and un-relatable number, can only be grasped, and even then the difficulty is enormous, if the number is substituted for names and stories. Not 6 million, Slomi, Rivka, the Perlsteins, the Lenchners.
That night we went out for a Middle Eastern dinner of salatim, pita and hummus. It may as well of been Pizza Hut. Psh. I substituted this meal for a bratwurst and a German beer or two or three. Erdinger, Shöfferhöffer and a Weihenshermaner.

Monday May 4th
The morning started with a walk to the Foreign Ministry. There we met with a man named Dr. Benedikt Haller. He is the special envoy for relations with the Jewish communities at the German Foreign Office. Dr. Haller is a robotic diplomat. Over the course of our session, we asked personal questions, intellectual questions, tough questions, easy questions, and every answer got from him was as though he was an emotionless bureaucrat. It was as if we would ask him a well thought out, thought-provoking question and he were to thinking ‘ah. Well this question is similar to this sort of question that I would rather he ask so ill respond to that’.
After the meeting with the man from the foreign ministry, I got caught up in a conversation with Ben, among others, about bureaucracy and the importance and dangers it holds. We spoke about how it was that this man, someone with a clear head on his shoulders could completely leave himself out of, leave his identity and worldview, out of such a job; how he could respond to a question about Darfur with complete and utter political suave and ease.

Later we went to a Jewish cemetery in Berlin. However, I was still caught up in a conversation I was having with ben earlier. We drove right into the enormously profound struggle that people go through, but more specifically the balance that politicians must find between being passionate about their ideology and true to their identity while at the same time being a pragmatic and emotion-free decision maker. We went through countless examples and endless mind scenarios about this struggle; how do we fix it? Can we? What is the right balance?
It was only suiting that a piece of the conversation was dedicated to the holocaust. The men and women that were responsible for the deaths of so many people was possible in part because of an removal of a human aspect as a result of an assembly line of power. Because of the bureaucracy of the matter, people could kill and do terrible things and simply think of it as their job, their duty, and something that should they not go through with it, could be punished by their superior.

We then discussed two things that terrified us: Firstly, that the people that we place in the roles of enormous power and influence, our politicians and leaders are just people. No different then us. They are just as susceptible to mistakes, error, misjudgment and negative influence as the rest of us. We too often like to think those leading us are some how better. But the second piece, knowing that these real people need to make extraordinarily profound decisions that effect us all, is the scariest. Knowing that its someone just like you somehow terrifies us. Knowing that a person is responsible for deciding whether or not in a high pressure, high stress moment torture is acceptable. In what context? With what exceptions if any? What about waterboarding? Is it torture? There are real men and women, elected by us, to decide these extremely profound decisions.

In 1963, Stanely Milgram did a series of experiments to test whether or not people were capable of inflicting terrible pain on people if there was a level of disconnection and if an authority figure told them to. Milgram went into the test with a personal hypothesis, shaped by the Holocaust and WWII, that the Nazis were a different breed; that they must have been a special type of person and that normal people were incapable of doing such atrocity. The results of the experiments were the contrary. Milgram proved that everyday people were more than capable of doing such terrible things when placed in such a context.
For me – when I hear such a story, such a shocking truth, I feel physically uncomfortable. I feel ill. I described it to Ben as feeling like there are ants under my skin – like there is something inherently wrong with people. What the experiment proves is that each and every one of us is capable of evil and by implication it is up to all of us to personally combat that evil. Sounds rather biblical, no?

But most importantly, we came to this point. There was a philosopher, his name is escaping me, that believed that for any leader to launch a nuclear bomb, he must get the detonator from inside the chest cavity of the living person. He should not be able to kill faceless others without seeing the cruelty of the implications of what he would be about to do. The same logic is applies to the public wanting public officials to experience the horror of torture if they are to inflict it on others. Yet we came to the conclusion that we would never want anyone in charge of making the decisions to feel the ants under the skin that I felt. And at that we had gone full circle: those same people must find a balance between the emotion and the pragmatism. The passion and the ideology.

We then traveled from the cemetery to the Jewish Musuem of Berlin. Simply put, this museum is unlike all other museums I have seen. Certainly unlike all other Jewish museums I have seen. The building was designed by Daniel Libeskind, and is truly amazing. Shocking, but amazing. The buildings shows a Jewish people left shattered by the Holocaust. the architecture is such that the building is shaped like a lightening bolt, constantly cracked and diverted.
The museum is decided to work as a historical timeline, documenting the history of the German Jewish community. Much of the museum is scary for one reason: it truly highlights exactly how assimilated the German Jewish community was pre-WWII. Often when thinking of the holocaust, we think of a stereotypical Polish Jew – peyes, black hat and black jacket. Wrong. The German Jewish community was completely assimilated. I’m sure ill touch on this later in a Hungary blog, but the same was true of the Hungarians. These Jews dressed, acted, worked, and lived the same as all other Germans. Many of them converted, changed their names and disassociated themselves from the Jewish community. There was one particular exhibit that showed a Jewish living room with a piano, family photos and a Christmas tree.

So what exactly is so scary about this? In short, (if you choose to look at it this way) it means that we as Jews are never fully safe. The leading belief at the time was to assimilate; blend into society and no one will know you're a Jew. Remove any ‘other’ aspect of yourself and you’ll be safe. Sorry to be the Debbie downer. Or the cynical sally.

The only way to access the museum is from an underground tunnel coming from the museum’s baroque wing. In the basement of the museum, is a room called the ‘Holocaust tower’. This tower is a solid concrete room, eight stories tall, with no heating and only maybe 10x30 feet. The moment you walk in, an employee of the museum shuts the door and you immediately feel terrified. You feel claustrophobic, cramped, and uneasy. You feel like you’re in a gas chamber.
Another tunnel leads to what is called the ‘garden of the exiles’. This consists of 49 pillars of concrete, each with an olive tree growing the top. The floor is slanted, at a rather sharp angle, leaving you feeling quite literally sick and, again, uneasy.

After the exhibit, Ben was walking around and asked a man working there where the bathroom was. The employee of the Holocaust museum responded ‘the bathroom is just down there to the right. Though there aren’t any showers’. At first ben just walked away, confused. After he left the bathroom, he began to realize exactly the implications of what he had said. We then went into a conference room to hear a Holocaust survivor tell his story but as the man started speaking Ben realized exactly how inappropriate and tasteless the comment was. He stood up and went outside, approached the man and simply said “what exactly did you mean by that?” by the end he determined that this was simply a very inappropriate, terrible attempt at humor. We were talking afterword about how in some sense it was expected. This man, growing up in a society where you are constantly taught about it, remembering it and learning about it but cant speak about it, is working at a museum where he is faced with the Holocaust every moment of everyday. Yet, he can never really talk about it because of its social taboo status. Nonetheless, ben and everyone that heard the story was shook up just a bit more.
Ended the day with Klezer music turned jazz and German beers. Yummy.

Tuesday May 5th
Tuesday we woke up early and headed off to Potsdam Castle. It was here that Truman, Stalin, and Churchill met to discuss the ramifications of the outcome of the war. Very similar to Versailles, the place is also a magnificent scenery; beautiful and ornate. After a tour of the grounds, which truly are breathtaking, we sat down for lunch. Lucky for us, it was asparagus season.

We then came back into Berlin and had some time to walk around before watching a movie with Jewish youth. I took the time to find a bratwurst and a German beer. Totally delicious. Then, sure enough, after the movie was more german beer and bed. You could say today was pretty low-key.

Last day in Berlin
Our last day in Berlin, ill will call Yom Politics. We spent the day being fortunate enough to meet with many different political figures, one from the Foreign Ministry, one from the Israeli embassy and one who is currently a member of the parliament.
The man from the Foreign Ministry, Dr. Schluffer, was just fantastic. An incredibly knowledgeable man, experienced and eloquent, Dr. Schluffer gave us a short introduction about himself before answer dozens of questions from the group. He currently works in Berlin for a government program working on conflict prevention. In this post-Cold War era, the challenges are entirely new, he said, and in order to meet the challenges the world needs to work together. His program works not only on prevention but on peace keeping, peace building and peace establishing. Problems don’t simply go away after ‘peace’ is created, he said, and there are measures required to maintain that peace. Perfect examples he said were Afghanistan and Pakistan, which he termed a world danger. Don’t we need more people like this in the world? Good news: the Germany government is heavily helping with this project. They just recently gave 109 million euros to the project to support, essentially, peace. The hippy inside me smiles just little bit more when I hear things like that.

After giving us his introduction, Kivunim let him have it. Asking questions ranging from Darfur, to how to battle extremism, Germany’s thoughts on U.S. foreign policy in Iraq, what to do about Pakistan, Kivunim got our money’s worth. Being very well versed in much everything foreign policy, he gave us thorough, thoughtful and eloquent answers.
We then took off for lunch with the Media Liaison for the Israeli embassy at Humboldt University. I’m simply not going to speak much about him. He left very little impression. Again, we were faced with a political bureaucrat, who admitted about himself that he took the job because of the pay and the chance to live in Berlin. Although I acknowledge the need for such people in the workplace, I just hope they stay away from jobs as important as improving Israelis image in the world (that this man happily admitted is one of the most pressing issues facing Israel today).
From lunch we were off to the Reichstag building and met with, Hans Ulrich Klose a member of the Bundestag, the German Parliament. Once again, we were able to have an incredible talk with an expert in their field. This man was a true pleasure to hear, speak with and learn from. Sharing much about Germany’s position in the modern world, its economic and foreign policy role in Europe and many experiences from his many years of his seasoned political career, we couldn’t have ended Berlin better.
We then hoped on the bus and headed east to Dresden. But that, that is for another blog entry.