Meeting Germany

My last post really was the conundrum of how to balance a memory with the pragmatic logistics of a space. It was brought up by a group's visit to a concentration camp where they were admonished by staff not to sing a melody once sung by those murdered there.

4 weeks ago I left for a 2 week trip to Germany with the above question in mind. Once there I came to realize the question was a microcosm for what we, Jews, Germans, the world is really asking...How should we remember the Holocaust?

It's a question I had never truly considered before. Obviously terrible, obviously tragic, obviously so painful to even write this. But how do we remember? How should we? What should we do? From memorials to education to prevention- how?

I traveled through Berlin, Wolfsburg, Nuremburg and Munich with a German program in affiliation with the Orthodox Union. The first night I could not fall asleep. It was one part jet lag and three parts an avid imagination fraught with images of the Jews who had walked Swedter Strase (street) before me. I had been keen on experiencing the second hand culture of Berlin, especially after my luggage failed to arrive, but when I finally got to a thrift store the realization that some things may be circa 1930's made me freeze. As did a menorah in an antique shop. Germany is permeated with ghosts that the living are trying to find a way to live alongside.

The "Stolperstein" are gold cobblestones with the names of Nazi victims placed on the ground outside the home where they had lived.  German residents commission them on their own. One is supposed to "stumble" and remember. It is a gesture of acknowledgement of the past. Not all like it as Jewish names are stepped on. Some would have preferred the extra euros to be spent by placing it near the doorbell.

The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe are plain slabs of concrete in a centrally located square in Berlin. The heights of the stone ranges and there are over 2,000. The lack of symbolism is supposedly meant to allow one to create their own feelings of remembrance. The orderliness of the stones is jarred by their varying heights.

Are slabs of concrete the way to memorialize? Another participant noted it did not touch his emotions. Perhaps if one were to wonder and ponder then one would react to the site. Children frolicked and jumped over the stones and people used the slabs as picnic benches. Was it not solemn enough? Respectful? Or was it a victory to frolic and dine where we once could not?  Does it negate being solemn?

I had never heard of the "Block der Frauen" memorial to the German women who had demanded the release of their Jewish husbands. I had never heard the story. I wonder if it was because of the intermarriage or if it was omitted due to the sheer volume of memories. How shall we educate? What shall we choose to tell?

Beneath the vast memorial is a Holocaust Museum. One comes from the outside with a gentle, general reminder of the Holocaust as a whole to an anguished exhibit where it becomes wretchedly personal. Postcards and letters rising with terror as those who realized what was happening wrote goodbye to "mon cherie." The most terrible is the family trees telling of what happened to each family.

There was one picture of a Zaidy helping his grandchild walk. Another of parents with a delightful rolly polly baby. It could G-d forbid have been a cousin, a niece, a nephew. For me it was the worst of all the memorials because I thought of my nephews and nieces. The ones I love so much. It makes my heart ache.

Does one take pictures at a concentration camp? Does one pose? Does one smile? Should pictures not be taken at all? It is hard to study modern Germany when one is not sure of how to behave while doing so. Here unlike the memorial is where people were actually murdered. Should one smile at a grave? Can we ask our guide questions about life in the concentration camp or should we be in a stupor of repulsion?