To write about a trip to Eastern Europe is daunting. So I’ll split my memories into two blogs. This one is dedicated to Berlin, centered on the memorials. I was struck by Professor James E. Young’s comment from his brilliant talk “Landscape of Memory" (available on youtube.com). Speaking of Holocaust memorials, he said, “in each of these places [archives and museums of the world], I found a very different Holocaust.” He continues, “memorials and museums shape the Holocaust in different ways.” This was the essence of what I discovered and it revealed a lot about how each country is coming to terms (or is not) with the Holocaust.
My relationship with Germany has not been very informed or intimate over the years. However, as Harry's and my thirtieth wedding anniversary approached, we were looking for a special place. My father-in-law’s vote for Berlin as “most fascinating city” was seconded by my well-travelled mother-in-law. It also fit well as a starting point for the Minneapolis Beth El Synagogue Eastern European tour we would be joining.
Up to this point, my most recent contact with Germany had been in the nineties when our extended family accidentally had stayed at Robinson Club in Mexico, not realizing it was German-owned. I cried when we were greeted in German. My five-year old participated in a play with the German kinder, and my niece sometimes served as the führer of the water polo team. I sat at meals wondering what my tablemates’ parents had done during the war. My father, who was hard of hearing, loved Robinson Club so much for its cleanliness and order that we actually returned again. It had become much more international by the next trip but still operated on schedule.
Then I saw the Israeli movie, Walk on Water (2004, directed by Eytan Fox), and I became aware that there was a generation of young Germans grappling with their legacy from the war. I found that comforting.
I entered Berlin with the thought of an international, vibrant, artistic city but was struck that I was also encountering a post-apocalyptic world. WWII casualties are estimated between 55 and 80 million with the upper figure representing those who died of famine and disease. Six million Jews and five million others (including Roma, Sinti, homosexuals, and political prisoners) were eradicated through systematic mass murder. That is an apocalypse with decades of aftershock in the form of Soviet occupation.
Berlin was the stronghold of Nazi power, where everything began. It later became a divided city as the Soviets were handed their spoils. How do Berliners incorporate this history into consciousness for themselves and the world? We only scratched the surface, but thanks to our excellent guide, Jeremy Minsberg, I’ll tell you what I learned.
Berliners don’t forget. Reminders of the Holocaust are dispersed through the city in the most central and hidden of places. To walk in Berlin is to be confronted with the Holocaust. In the middle of the city stand huge blocks suggesting a gargantuan graveyard or, alternatively, ghetto walls. The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe (separate from the Jewish Holocaust Museum) lay underneath with stories of individuals who had died. Berlin does not forget the Roma and Sinti either with a memorial just completed. The Museum of Terror in a glass building outlines the growth of Fascism, with the question of how did we (Germans) as a society allow this. There is a memorial to homosexuals which reminds Germans that they have a special responsibility for upholding civil liberties for all.
When one walks throughout Berlin one invariably steps near a Stolpersteine “a stumbling stone”, a 3x4 brass-covered block engraved in front of an institution or house. On that stone is the name of the family members who lived there with the birthdate, the date they were deported and a date and place of death, if known. The word “murdered” is used here as it is on many memorials lest there be doubt. This is the work of one Berlin artist, Gunter Demnig, who was disturbed by the anonymity of the Holocaust victims and by creating a stone for the person “the name is given back.”Since 1997 Demnig has made and installed nearly 50,000 Stolpersteine throughout Europe. In front of Humboldt University we saw a stumbling block which included the names of the professors who had worked there and been victim to the Holocaust. However, according to an article in this week's Tablet, the stumbling blocks are not welcome in every German village.
As we walked toward the posh Charlottenburg area, we saw the bombed out Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church, known as “the hollow tooth.” At a metro close to the famous, luxury-filled KaDeWe department store was a sign which, at first sight, looked like a simple post with names of cities and distances. Instead, the names of extermination camps and the number of people deported were listed.
Jeremy Minsberg had told us “Notice what is missing. Notice what is absent.”
The memorial to the "Night of Burning Books" could easily be missed. It stands in front of Humboldt University, and almost by accident, one steps onto a pane of glass in the pavement that reveals a library of empty bookshelves below. In the old Jewish section of Mitte, on beautiful Grosshamburger Street, the missing house is another example, though this was a victim of the allied bombing. On opposite walls of the missing building are the names of residents who used to live there.
I knew nothing of the Rosenstrasse Protest until Jeremy showed us the monument in Mitte entitled "Block der Frauen" ("Block of Women"), dedicated in 1995 and carved by sculptor Ingeborg Hunzinger. In 1943, about 2000 Jewish men married to non-Jewish women were rounded up for transport. These women protested for days against the Nazis for taking their Jewish husbands..In the end, Goebbels relented, releasing the men. The inscription reads:
"The strength of civil disobedience, the vigor of love overcomes the violence of dictatorship;
Give us our men back; Women were standing here, defeating death; Jewish men were free."
The implication was that civil disobedience did work. The tragedy was that so little protest occurred within Germany.
There are many more memorials, perhaps the one that affected me the most was the memorial at the Grunewald Train Station commissioned by the Deutsche Bahn, the German National Railway. To reach this spot, we exited a metro in a wealthy, western section of Berlin that seemed bucolic. In front of us lay the platform where Jews were gathered to be deported. Jeremy reminded us that at least early on, they still had hope. They carried their suitcases, dressed in their good clothes believing that they were simply being relocated rather than removed. As we walked up, we passed a wall of silhouettes of men, women, children carved out of the negative space of the stone. Then, when we reached Track 17 and walked along the railway, we saw plaque after plaque reporting each date of transport, the number transported and the place. As the camps filled, the destination was marked “unbekannt” unknown. Most likely they were executed en route. Even in 1945 when the Nazis were clearly losing the war, people were still transported.
Berliners remember. Perhaps all Germans remember. They are forced to, and their children are educated to understand their responsibility. It is weighty. However, I found it extremely comforting that the victims of the Holocaust are not forgotten. I may visit Berlin again and appreciate its resurgence and vitality, but I needed first to understand how Berliners remembered.