GCU: Political and Cultural Germany in a Nutshell

While the date of this post reflects when the events described took place, in reality this entry was written long afterward. I apologize for any inaccurate details or incomplete ideas...


As with most days, we started off Wednesday morning with breakfast and the dispersion of brown-bag lunches with Bagels! (GCU loves their bagels). Today was dedicated to political Germany in a nutshell.
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GCU: Shoah Study Day

Today the Germany Close Up program directed its focus toward the face of memory in and around Berlin.

Our first visit of the morning was to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. Built between 2003-2004, the area contains a memorial with a museum underneath in. Our plan was to begin the day in the museum and conclude the day at the memorial, but as we stood in line waiting to descend, we observed the Reichstag (the German Parliament building) and the American and other flags belonging to buildings located around the perimeter of the site, and discussed the details of the surface. Controversial in nature, there is no significance to the number or size of the stones that extend through this large city block. And why was there a museum underneath it all? was it suggesting the subterranean levels of a cemetery? Of rubble from a war zone?

We were unfortunately very rushed in our visit underground, but the exhibits had unique personalizing features to them. Whether walking through a dark room with glowing quotes on the walls and floor, following families from around Europe, or listening to testimonials, the museum emphasized the individual. I noted that the language reflected the conversations of yesterday (ie. November Pogrom). Still, I didn't find artifacts here, I found it very compact, and considering the size of the above memorial, I didn't understand why there was such little space. I was also struck by the general geography of the presentation. While in Budapest, the story of the Holocaust Museum there represented the Hungarian narrative. I found this narrative to be no different from that of Washington, L.A., or Jerusalem. Was this an international site of education and/or an expression of Germany's relationship to the whole of Europe during this time period and the consequences of what Germany initiated? I suppose the latter must carry some accuracy, because while the initial goal to eliminate the Jews of Germany, and not exterminate them, once the latter was adopted, and various vehicles of carrying out that operation were employed, they took place mostly outside of Germany but belong to the German narrative. Still, I expected to see something more unique, and not such a general recounting and capturing of history.

Pictures of Memorials in Berlin

Introducing Germany Close Up in East Berlin

How do you react to an environment that was once responsible for possibly the greatest inhumanity in history, and one with tremendous personal impact?

At what point is it appropriate and safe to turn your attention from the past, and how far can you turn before risking the loss of memory?

Berlin had been a ruined and divided city until the Wall fell in 1989. Since then, efforts have been made to join the two sides. We arrived at the central train station, built for the World Cup that was recently hosted.

Our main base for the week (besides our hotel) was the New Synagogue, on Oranienburger Straße. It is now also the Jewish Center, or Centrum Judaicum. The Synagogue was built in the 1860's and housed more than 3,000 worshipers. There were two levels, so say 1,600 women sat upstairs, and 1,600 men below. It was the first Synagogue to use an organ. The structure sought to show the confidence and pride of the liberal Jews of Berlin, along with two Rabbinical seminaries that still exist today. All that's left of this Synagogue is the facade and the tower. Today it functions with the Jewish Center to connect with Israel, preserve the memory of Berlin Jewry, and educate. There was a reason behind the choice not to rebuild the Synagogue.

In 1923, more than 170,000 Jews lived in Berlin. This is the community we were entering and remembering through the memorials around us.

The German Jewish community of today's Berlin are mostly Russian, amounting to 12,000, with 8,000 from the former Soviet Union (some of which aren't necessarily halachically Jewish), 1,000 Orthodox. All in all there are around 20,000 Jews in Berlin, but many of the rest are secular Israelis who aren't part of the Jewish community.

This and other information was shared with us by Dagmar, the director of the program. Trained as a Protestant Pastor, she is a PhD in Hebrew Bible, has studied all over, and teaches Hebrew Bible and Near East studies. She discussed how Germany Close Up won a competition for government funding to promote trans-Atlantic relations and Jewish exchange programs. She also pointed out that the German government doesn't censure or monitor the curriculum of the program, so there is no agenda, and no barrier obstructing views and discussions of positives and negatives.

Pictures of Berlin
Pictures of Mitte and Memorials

eine Nacht in Dresden

Standing at the station, waiting for a train, our itinerary expired. We had only been given directions up to this point. While there was an itinerary waiting for us at our destination, there was a fleeting moment where 53 students and staff were lined up and entering a world of unknowns. By way of a train.

One short train ride later, and we had entered the source of decades of stories that have surrounded my community, family, and life. The Jewish image of Germany as I had been taught ended in 1945; that is the story of the Jews of Germany ended, as well as the narrative of Germany. Few events were relevant enough to bring Germany back into the Jewish history books, such as Munich. What Germany is today, most American Jews don't know or care to find out.

My only visit to Germany up to this point had occurred during a flight and layover on my birthday, on the way to Morocco. I was pleasantly surprised by the generousness of the flight crew. We lit candles for Hanukkah in the smoking zone. That was it and clearly, that was not a very educational visit.

It was time to take the Germany that American Jews have been taught to boycott, to never forgive or forget, and to match that up face to face with the real Germany, as it is now.

We arrived in Dresden and were met by a staff of three 20 year-olds, part of a special program for American Jews called Germany Close Up. Together, they would introduce us to Dresden and Berlin, the present, as well as the past. What made this program special was that while it is for Jews, and there is a careful awareness of religious observation, it is not, as far as I'm concerned, a Jewish program.

Our time is Dresden was limited and we were waking up early tomorrow to ride to Berlin, but we took off soon after landing in the hotel for a tour of the city. I knew little about Dresden, and judging by the spontaneous recall of Slaughterhouse Five, I was really uninformed. All I knew was that the Americans firebombed the whole city in World War II. I was expecting to be shown significant places that had since been reconstructed. So when we passed by a monument with a menorah on it and arrived first at a Synagogue, I was pretty surprised. This place, the "Semper Synagogue," built by a famous German architect named Gottfried Semper (who has a statue nearby), was a century old before it was destroyed on Kristalnacht, or "the Night of Broken Glass." As our tour guide explained that the Jewish population of 5,000 was reduced to 100 during the War, she used the word שואה, Shoah, a Hebrew word meaning calamity, destruction, or annihilation, now used to define the Holocaust.

Wait.

A German tour guide is using Hebrew words to describe the Holocaust? What is this place? What has it become? And just how do Germans think about what happened here?

Pictures of Dresden

Stories from Terezin

Our visit to Europe was about to get much more complicated. We left Prague early Sunday morning on our way to a small garrison town called Terezin, en route to Dresden, Germany. Terezin was one of five fortresses built by Josepf son of Maria Tereza protecting his Holy Roman Empire from Prussia. Beginning around April 1939, the Nazis used this town as a ghetto for Czechoslovakian and other Jews, as well as a concentration camp. The town became known as Terezinstadt.

Pictures of Terezin

Prague Preserved

Rolling into Prague, glimpses of the bridges and the expertly preserved architecture provided a peek into the quintessential European city. Shalmi provided a backdrop for the beautiful churches and cathedrals we were seeing.

Pictures from Prague

Bussing Through Slovakia: Introducing Prague

Late night shopping for lunch supplies and early morning departure meant we didn't manage to find everything we needed for our picnic in Slovakia. Among other things we were short 60 cups. How do you express the need to purchase supplies to a Hungarian bus driver without distracting him from his task? Two words: Google Translate! After much deliberations, we decided the most succinct English statement to translate would be along the lines of "when we go to toilets, we need plastic cups." We wrote it on a piece of paper, and Shalmi our Israeli guide, and former director of Holocaust education at Yad Vashem, showed it to the driver. His response: "He's smiling... he's laughing... he's reaching into his pocket..." Whatever he did, we couldn't respond anyway. We arrived at a gas station in Slovakia for a break, where the cashier agreed to sell me 60 plastic cups for a whopping 6 Euro, when the twix bars cost about 60 Euro cents. When we returned to the bus, the driver went up to a student, handed her a stack of plastic cups and said "toilet?" A day of endless possibilities was in store.

Pictures from Prague

Meet Buda and Pest

After a wet Purim in Jerusalem, the group and I woke up before 2 to catch a bus and flight to Budapest.

What follows are posts and notes about my stays for 2 days in Budapest, 4 in Prague, and about a week in Berlin. Each city had its own look, more or less rebuilt after the war. Each city also had its own relationship and attitude toward the Jewish story.

Pictures from Budapest

Loose Ends Before Europe: Haifa, Haredim, and Betar

So I'm going to Europe with the Kivucrew to see how Judaism was and is. The difference with this visit to Budapest, Prague, Bratislava, Dresden and Berlin is there will only be a side order of the Holocaust. In any event I have stories from three places that I'll share in brief: