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?

On the Conflation Between a Museum Visit and a Soul Journey

I interned at a non-sectarian museum this year. The word ‘non-sectarian’ came up in the interview and I pretended I knew what it meant or I asked. Whichever. According to Google it means:

 1. not involving or relating to a specific religious sect or political group.

This made sense as the museum is non-sectarian and partially publicly funded. It is a culturally Jewish institution with no religious, or little religious, merit. However the museum is culturally, architecturally and historically significant. What is this museum you ask? It’s a 19th century synagogue.

The catch is that it still functions as a synagogue today. The museum closes shop Friday afternoon and Saturday and the few remaining congregants move in for the Shabbat. 

Now the museum staff and synagogue board have an complex relationship. From what I understand, the synagogue technically owns the building but the museum covers all the maintenance expenses. What’s more the museum is a result of a $18 million project that restored the dilapidated space and is the reason it is still standing. In other words if not for the project which led to the museum there would not be a synagogue.  

The prevailing attitude of the congregation is that they deem to acquiesce that the museum be there. Which is ironic as there would be no building without the museum as upkeep of the synagogue dwindled as the Jewish population in the area dwindled. 

The museum staff refer to “space” as  a construct to describe the building’s importance in both American Jewish history and in the present as well as immigrant life today. Yet, there is something that bypasses the rhetoric of a ‘space.’ This space is a synagogue. 

My high school was in a converted Jewish center first built in the 1940’s or 1960’s. On the ground level there was a synagogue which was also a shortcut to the second story of the annexed building. Slight issue: according to Jewish tradition, it is inappropriate to use a holy synagogue as a means of getting somewhere faster. The loophole is saying a verse Torah as you walk. 

When I walk into the museum, ergo walk into the sanctuary, I quietly whisper a verse of Torah. Though I am there for the museum, what the space is, non-sectarian vernacular or not, is a Jewish house of worship. It would be so whether it was in use or was not.

August of this year Rabbi Rafi Ostroff led a group on a visit Auschwitz. Let’s forget for the moment that there is a fee to enter this place which I personally feel should fall to pieces or at least not be so magnificently maintained. The visit resulted with him being given the ultimatum of spending Friday night in jail aka Shabbat or paying a fine of $300.

Let’s look at some of these articles:

http://www.truthrevolt.org/israel-revolt/auschwitz-guards-arrest-rabbi-singing-jewish-songs

His group of teenagers sang the song of Ani Mammin, a song about faith that was sung by the Jews being led to the gas chambers. The guards ordered them to stop which they did not. 

"Ostroff said that in a “secluded part” of the Birkenau camp, the “boys spontaneously started singing ‘Ani Maamin.’ This was the song that prisoners sang on the way to be murdered there. A guard drove after us with his car and demanded that they be silent. I told him that I don’t have control over this as they are singing from their hearts. He then threatened to arrest me and called the police.”"

Read more: http://www.jta.org/2014/08/04/news-opinion/world/israeli-rabbi-demanding-apology-after-group-prevented-from-singing-at-auschwitz#ixzz39aMRLHsj

Why were they not allowed to sing? The guards said because it was they were disrupting other visitors and instructors. Fine. I’ll accept that. But this is what I will not accept:

"Danny Feigen, a student at Yeshivat Eretz Hatzvi in Jerusalem and member of Rabbi Ostroff’s group, witnessed a guard ask, “would you sing in the British museum?” "

And that is where the truth is lost. These places are not museums. They are witnesses to Jewish life. Some of the teenagers in the group had family who died at Auschwitz. Visiting these places are not due to impartial curiosity of the culturally, architecturally or historically significant. 

These so called “spaces” are not just ideas inhabiting a place. As Rabbi Ostroff said, “It is a journey to the depths of our souls.”

An elderly Jewish man visited the museum and he broke out in a Jewish song. Credit goes to the museum staff for grinning and bearing it.

My S3 Memorial #bringbackourboys

The day the boys were declared dead was also the day I made a shortcut for the psalms assigned to me (to pray) on my phone. The shortcut was not a pessimistic presumption that we would not find them quickly but a way of ensuring I would not forget to do my part. 

I named the shortcuts #bringbackourboys. I went to a rally. I prayed. I freaked out because my sister was on Birthright though I warned her not to get into random carsand not to hitchhike even before this happened. 

I was awed by the faith and courage of Eyal, Gilad and Naftali’s families. I was blown by the unity of people both Jewish and not. My inner Jewess, demonstrator, lover of the Holy Land, protester was unleashed. 

Then their bodies were found. I was shocked. I had not expected it. I had been awaiting a miracle.

Other things happen. Some pleasant.

A nasty person made up a story of a couple renaming their triplets after the boys and I stopped sharing articles on facebook without running them by Snopes.com.

A couple actually, really, truly did name their son after the 3 boys. They were inspired by the unity these boys ignited. That was loaded. I applauded them but could not imagine doing the same.

The IDF moved in and the tunnels were uncovered.

Through it all my finger hovered over that #bringbackourboys psalm shortcut. After all we were no longer splitting the psalms. It was time to delete it.

In a rush I was overwhelmed by the unity I had felt. That though the initial reason for this shortcut was not there something that surpassed that reason still was. The feelings expressed and lessons learnt were still there.

So I kept the shortcut and I try to say the psalms.

They are there as a testimonial. As a memorial. As a daily reminder of Israel and of our spirit. And as an everlasting tribute in the form of prayer for Eyal, Gilad and Naftali -may they rest in peace. 

Freshman Flashback: Day 1

As per usual I was hyper aware, my nerves fully charged as I selected a seat toward the back in my Comp 1 class.

People filed in and then the professor came in. A very tall, rail thin, lanky woman with cropped brown hair, many ear piercings, a short skirt, sleeveless shirt and glasses. She happened to look exactly like my eleventh and twelfth grade English teacher.

Which wasn’t a possibility as my English teacher at my Bais Yaakov type school was orthodox and had a short blonde wig. She did not have numerous piercings and wore orthodox-modest long skirts. I had found her doppelganger.  This was unfortunate. My English teacher had accused me of plagiarizing a line from a paper on A Separate Peace. I found this insulting, not because of the implications on my moral character, but because of the implication that I needed to cheat. 

The resemblance was eerie. And then in struck me. The professor’s name was my high school teacher’s maiden name. I nugget of information I had forgotten. They were sisters. Duh.

After class I pushed aside my anxiety of college and of talking to people and approached my professor to ask, “Do you know a Mrs. R?” 

She gave me a look and replied, “I am Mrs. R.”

So, being a realist, I took this to mean I would not leave college still orthodox. Like her if I would drift astray from Torah path under the influence of college. The rabbis and teachers at my high school had given dire warnings of such things. 

My anxiety reached overdrive. Should I stay in college? Should I not?

I took three classes that semester. I earned an A, A+ and a B.

That ‘B’ would be the only grade under an A- that I would earn at college. 

I know my work was not up to par but I always wondered if there was some sort of pyschological reason I could not conquer that class.