Conference taveng::bagels

    Hi .
    Here in Jerusalem - we can't see WGBH (it's a pitty it has very good
    	programs) but I know from others who left Europe after the war -
    	even few years after - that they don't want to go back there .
    For example My father who made "Aliah" to Israel at 1949 when he was
    	24 - didn't want to go back there even when he needed because of
    	his studies .
    As you may understand I didn't see the documentary film - so I can't 
    	react to things that might be said there .
    	You can look on Germany as the edje of 1900 years of Antisemitisem
    	but you can say the same thing about all the Europien countries.
    You can try to belive that These days the world changed - the land
    	doesn't take acts at that play .. so you can live very easily in
    	Germany as well as in France,England,Spain etc.
    You can say That you won't forget the killing and the humaliation of
    	jews when it was made systematicaly - so you can't live in Europe
    	or Some Asian countries too .
    You can limit yourself and say that only the Holocaust that happend in
    	the 40's is metter and all the other don't so you can hate Germany
    	to the rest of your life .
    All tese are feelings , we can't say who is right and who is wrong but
    	it can be a very interesting quistion about the humean memories and
    	The way to forget ...
    \Avri

For discussion:

I personally know of none of my own relatives who were victims (though 
I'm sure there were very many).  I am an American Jew who tries to get 
along with all.

I was suprised by by own gut feeling when I crossed the border from 
France into Germany.  Mentally I knew that all this happened 50 years ago 
and almost all the perpetrators are dead.  Emotionally, though, I 
couldn't avoid the stong feelings of apprehension and anxiety until I 
left the country (this was prior to unification).

My wife, in a separate trip, had exactly the same reactions.  While we 
both realize that those alive should not be responsible for the sins of 
their fathers, we still cannot avoid the intense automatic feelings that 
stir within us when we enter Germany.

It is a beautiful country and everyone we met was very friendly (whether 
or not they knew we were Jewish) still...

Shelly

    As .1 points out, there are many points of view on this and one can say
    that all of them are correct.  The filmmaker even recounts a story
    about a shtetl rabbi who always agreed with both sides.  He said to
    Party A, "You're right."  He then said to Party B, "You're right." 
    When his wife said he would never make a living this way, he said to
    her "You're right."
    
    This was in a discussion with his mother and an aunt who had a nice
    recent visit back to Warsaw after having survived concentration camp.
    His aunt returned there because it was the city of her youth. 
    
    Another interesting facet of the film is the biographical material
    about the filmaker's mother, who arrived in Eretz as a young woman of
    25 in the 1930's.  She managed as a single mother, ran her own farm,
    participated in setting agricultural prices for the new government, is
    culturally very open to Arabs, loves playing JS Bach on the piano, and
    is altogether a fascinating person.
    
    It was interesting that she insisted her son learn German and told him
    German proverbs and fairy tales.  He stated he thinks she has a
    Prussian manner.  So the German cultural roots are far from dead.
    
    I've noticed this in myself, though I was born and raised in the USA. 
    I feel a strong affinity to German culture through my love of Bach and
    many other cultural elements.  There was a sizeable German immigration
    to the USA in the mid-19th century and it is very much part of our
    society.  One of my closest friends is a descendant of such a family.
    Yet I also felt very uncomfortable when I visited Germany.  I kept
    imagining fleeing Jews hiding in the woods.  I was relieved when I
    left.
    
    As the film evolves, it turns out that the filmaker's mother's
    objection to going is fundamentally moral, not emotional.  She recalls
    the Jewish boycott of Spain, that lasted 500 years.  She asks,
    shouldn't the Jews stay out of Germany at least one generation?
    
    L

    A very interesting topic.

    I met my wife, a Sabra, while she was doing her PhD at Munich University.
    One of my first questions was why she, an Israeli, would choose Munich
    to do her PhD.

    Her mother is a Berliner and so Ruthy, my wife, has a German as well as
    Israeli passport. She also has friends in Munich from her schooldays
    and youth exchange programs. For her, even though very few of her mother's
    side of the family survived the Holocaust, there is no blame to be
    attached to modern, young Germans.

    Paradoxically her father, a Frenchman from Alsace, much prefers the
    modern Germans to the French. Mind you, he was so disgusted with the
    massive difference in the number of "members" of the resistance pre- and
    post-VE day, that he renounced his French citizenship.

    He has a point. When we were living in Munich and he came to visit he
    just got on a plane and flew to Munich! When he wanted to visit his
    mother and sister in Strasbourg he had first to get a visa. This situation
    has just recently changed. In the last few months, I think.

    There is a much bigger Jewish community in France (mainly Paris) than
    Germany. The comparative figures are of the order of 500,000 versus
    40,000.

    Nevertheless the French government has been profoundly anti-semitic.
    Trade with Arab countries, some of them former colonies, seems to be
    far more important to the French. As usual with the French, ethical
    questions are not allowed to interfere with trade and French national
    interests.

    With Germany, on the other hand, trade with Israel is important and 
    the German government has gone out of its way to further Germany-Israel 
    trade. Whether or not hey have been generous in compensating Jews and
    their descendents who had property confiscated in the 30's is another
    matter.

    One example which gives an insight into the difference between French
    attitudes and German attitudes involves one of the clerical staff
    attached to the lab where my wife is finishing off her PhD. This woman
    suffers from psoriasis so badly that she gets a free, 4 week trip to
    the Dead Sea each year. This wouldn't happen in France, even if their
    health care system were as generous.

    Eilat is a natural holiday destination for Germans wanting to go scuba
    diving. For the French this would be almost unthinkable. They would
    naturally go to the next-door Egyptian resort whose name escapes me.

    Does all this mean that there is more anti-semitism in France than 
    Germany? After-all, France has had a Jewish president (Leon Blum?).
    The truth is I honestly don't know. French officialdom and the Frenchman
    you meet in the bar, supermarket etc are totally different. The man in the
    street is usually a friendly, warm person. When I do encounter hostility
    I find it difficult to separate anti-foreigner feeling in general from
    anti-semitism.

    As regards Germany, I would much rather be Jewish in Munich than Turkish
    in Rostock or any of the North-eastern German towns. (The trial of the
    people responsible for burning three Turkish women to death in their home
    in, I think, Rostock, is apparently "running into problems"). 

    Perhaps it would be fairer to say that I wouldn't like to be anybody in a 
    North-eastern German town. Munich is quite different from other German 
    cities and it's not really fair to compare.

    As the recession bites deeper in Germany perhaps things will change, but
    at the moment my impression is that middle class whites are welcome and
    suffer little in the way of prejudice regardless of religion in former
    Western Germany. I'm not so confident about the Eastern L�nder.

    It is interesting to note that if you declare that you are Jewish when
    you register then the 7�% Kirchsteuer (church tax) is deducted from your
    salary and paid over to the Jewish community in the same way that the tax
    is collected on behalf of the Catholic and Protestant churchs in Germany.

    Brian

My dad came to the US after WWII and was in many of the camps. He lost
just about all of his family - all the immediate family - during the
war.

I have had to go to Munich for Digital quite a few times and thought that
I would not be able to stomach it. Reality was that it was fine; I'm
not sure I would choose to go there on a vacation. It was a strange
feeling driving through Germany and seeing signs for towns that once had
huge Jewish populations. But being in Munich was not really uncomfortable.

    My wife and I saw the program.  (Don't worry Avri, there are many good
    programs of Jewish content that are on Israeli TV and never make it
    here)
    
    Although I enjoyed the film very much, there were a few things that
    bothered me, and they don't have anything to do with Germans or
    Germany, etc.
    
    For one thing I wondered what type of relationship Micha Peled and his
    mother had all these years, if he was just discovering all these facts
    about her.  It seemed as though he was interviewing a complete stranger
    at times.  Considering that it was just the two of them, it's more
    striking.  Is his residence abroad a physical match to his emotional
    ties?
    
    Secondly, I have a general observation to make regarding his mother and
    like people of her generation.  Chalutzim like her were wrapped up in
    their mix of marxism and zionism, and had made "correct" relations with
    the Arabs part of that ideology.  It almost reached a proportion of
    entrancement with Arabs.  Although this had some good points to it like
    recognizing Arabs as people just like us, unfortunately they did not
    demonstrate the same understanding towards mizrachim (Oriental Jews)
    after 1948, nor did it receive the same priority.  In some instances I
    would even go so far as to say that some attitudes were racist.
    It was governments composed of Jews like Naomi (her name?) who sent
    thousands of people off to barren development towns in the middle of
    nowhere (they were in the '50's) with little or no support.
    
    In my opinion understanding with the Arabs can never be reached until
    we have a full understanding of ourselves.  I think that the succeeding
    generations have improved upon this problem, particularly through
    "intermarriage" and further integration of the whole population.
    
    /d.c.

    My girlfriend who is jewish(and a die-hard New Yorker) recently visited
    friends in Berlin. Being someone is not jewish and never having been to
    Germany, I must admit I was rather worried about her safety considering
    the recent violent activities of skinheads against foreigners in
    general. Despite my apprehension, she survived unscathed. Though there
    are still the undesirable feelings of hate towards foreigners, she
    tells me that these hoodlums are of the minority. Even taking this into
    consideration, it is impossible to erase the feelings of disgust and
    anger over the atrocities commited by their earlier generation. Though
    we can not hold these people accountable for the sins of their fathers,
    I still must say that we MUST in some respect remain angry. The anger
    will help us to remember. If we were to ever grow indifferent, it will
    happen again. NEVER FORGET!

I've just come back from ten days in Germany (meeting with customers during
the week and visiting friends on the weekends), and I must say that the
Germans are struggling with dealing with their past.

I've always suspect that their obsession with order and cleanliness was like a
national Lady Macbeth crying "Out, damned spot" over the guilt of the war.

On this trip my friends from Rimpar and I visited the reconstruction of the
synagogue in Veitsh�chheim destroyed before the war and used as a storage
room for town fire-fighting equipment until just a couple of years ago.
On Sunday afternoon there was quite a crowd visiting the former synagogue
and the adjacent museum of Jewish life in Franconia.  But there was no
Jewish community using it yet.

Polls have indicated that almost all Germans say that they are not anti-Semitic,
but that a small but significant percentage would say they would not like to
have Jews as neighbors.  On a visit to another city a couple of years ago I
was aghast when someone I've known since I was a child responded to my
mentioning that I was going to a Bat Mitzvah by saying "Wie kommst du zu
Juden?"  (How do you come into contact with Jews?)  I pulled out my address
book and showed her that I "come into contact with Jews" on a daily basis.

The economic problems that are affecting the whole world are being felt
especially hard in the eastern part of Germany.  And it is here that
political expression was suppressed by the totalitarian regime, so it
is not surprising that it is primarily here that hatred of foreigners
is welling up.  The government is trying hard to suppress it, and there
are current court cases dealing with whether it is appropriate to charge
persons with a crime who publicly deny that the holocaust happened.

I see more difficult times ahead for Germany, dealing with its history.

/john

Bonn -- Freedom of speech in Germany does not extend to the claim the
Holocaust never happened, the nation's highest court ruled yesterday.

The decision reassured Jewish leaders who had been upset by a lower court's
ruling last month that overturned the conviction of a rightist who had denied
that Jews were systematically murdered by the Nazis.

Calling the Holocaust a lie, rightists have attempted to give the impression
that Germany's reputation is being smeared by Jews and foreigners.

In its action, the German Constitutional Court has upheld the long-standing
German prohibition of statements denying the Holocaust.  Joerg van Essen,
a member of parliament and a formal federal prosecutor said that Deckert,
head of the National Democratic Party which denies the Holocaust, may
end up getting a stiffer penalty in his retrial than the 18-month sentence
handed out in his first conviction for incitement of racial hatred.

In New York, Elon Steinberg of the World Jewish Congress said that the
"Auschwitz Lie" is a "proven untruth" and a criminal insult against living
Jews, and that the German court "has said that promoting hateful lies is
not covered by free speech."

hello and shalom all,

being one half german, i might aswell add my 2 cents worth from my
german (and fwiw, atheist) perspective...

.0> It also had interviews with young contemporary German Jews, discussing
.0> their somewhat uneasy state of being in Germany today.  

many of our generation west-germans feel somewhat uneasy with the state 
in which germany is in today.

- we have grown up in a europe, to which de gaulle of france and adenauer 
of germany have laid the foundation. a continent growing towards unification,
overcoming the 150 year old concept of nation and the divisions sought by
nationalisms.

- we have grown up with learning from the wars and the atrocities commited 
by our authoritarian and nationalistic regimes of the past, culminating in
world war II and the holocaust, with publications such as "the yellow star"
and the "diary of anne frank" becoming our compulsory reading for us during 
school days.

- we have studied alongside our british, french, italian and other european
neighbours, and in the framework of student exchange and european partnership 
town programmes, we have gotten to know and value eachother.

- we have become europeans. we were both told and have learned to focus on 
our common european future, whilst remembering our country's history, to 
serve as a constant reminder of the values of democracy and tolerance and 
to keep alive the threats of authoritative and reactionary thinking.

this, my post-war generation of germans, is today confused.

we have little understanding why we, who had comfortably grown up in the
post-war european reality, shared with our west european counterparts,
should suddenly be asked to pick up the bill for the outdated ideals of 
reunification of germany. an ideal thrust upon us by our elder statesmen. 
reunification with what? wasn't the focus of *unification* on western europe?
wasn't this the post-war ideal? why should we now pay to revamp the 
infrastructure, to remedy the environmental damage, to raise the standard 
of living in that neighbouring second-world country, with which our post-war 
generation had nothing to share, apart from a mutual fear of a nuclear war
in camps opposed and a common history of comparatively brief political 
union. why do our elder politicians suddenly behave as if that german 
nation had always been united up until the second world war? had we not 
learned in our history classes, that this unified german nation created by 
bismarck had only spanned three generations? was it not a period in history 
which was marred by conflict and wars culminating in that great fiasko?
as if this unification of germany wasn't costing enough, pulling the rest 
of our western europe partners deeper into an economic crisis, giving rise 
to protectionist and anti-immigrant sentiments, those die-hard idealists of 
our elder generation politicians, want to spend an additional countless 
billions on relocating the capital from bonn to berlin. that berlin which 
has become the symbol of modern day german thinking, the center of the 
cultural avant-guarde, the alternative anti-authoritarian post-war thinking.

well to me it seems, that those in charge today of my parents generation, 
who have known a different germany as children and who have built this united 
europe, simply aren't going the full way. they look forward and take a step 
backwards. the economic crisis in europe is in good part due to the cost of 
reunification of germany. this economic crisis provides the ground for the 
simplistic anti-immigrant and reactionary thinking of the new right wing 
populist parties. my generation will have to foot the bill for the damage 
this reunification is doing too, and all i know, is that i for one, will not 
be part of that silent majority, as my grand-parents were. the populist 
right-wing parties are gaining votes all over europe. i am out there, 
opposing them today, that's what i was educated to do and i am not waiting 
to watch us walk into the next fiasko. fortunately, there are many fellow 
germans of my generation, who think alike.


regards,
andreas.

.8> On a visit to another city a couple of years ago I was aghast when someone 
.8> I've known since I was a child responded to my mentioning that I was going 
.8> to a Bat Mitzvah by saying "Wie kommst du zu Juden?"  (How do you come into 
.8> contact with Jews?)  

have you ever stopped to consider that this question might have been asked out
of genuine interest? there are not many jews living in germany today, so being
in contact with jews there, might be something special.


regards,
andreas.