COMMENT

Berlin teaches its past horror

by HOWARD M. BERLIN

12/6/2005

I have just returned for a second time this year from a trip to the city of my namesake, Berlin. As one who was born just after the end of World War II, I went there curious to see how Germany's reunified capital has adapted 60 years after the end of the war.

As I expected it would, my last name did cause some humorous double takes at the hotel and other places when in my passable German, I introduced myself with, "Ja, ich bin ein Berliner" even though my immigrant grandparents on both sides were Russian.

However, these trips were not without some reservations for the feelings of my wife. Her late parents were both Holocaust survivors who had lost many relatives in the Nazi death camps.

At least from my observations, Berlin has made great strides in coming to grips with the war and the Holocaust. But there are signs that that it has not completely disassociated itself with the racial bigotry of its past.

The German Historical Museum currently has an excellent exhibit covering the 60-year period following World War II. The display also pulled no punches regarding the extermination of Jews, gypsies, and other groups during the war.

During a visit to the Jewish Museum, I saw groups of German school children being shown the history of the Holocaust. The history of the Holocaust is now taught in all German schools. It was another thing to see exhibits of surviving artifacts-clothing, propaganda newspapers, films, and photos. Some children and teenagers couldn't look at the photos and exhibits for long without having to turn away with tears in their eyes, not believing there once were books printed with titles like "Berlin Without Jews."

Near the entrance to the Wittenbergplatz subway station across the street from Berlin's famous KaDeWe department store, there is a simple sign post that lists the names of 12 concentration camps preceded with the translated notation: "Places of terror that no one must forget."

In the Northeastern Scheunenviertel ("Barn Quarter") part of the city was the old Jewish Quarter. One can see occasional small brass plaques embedded in the cobblestone sidewalks that mark the names of many of the Jews who once lived at those addresses in that neighborhood, their year of birth, year of deportation, and camp destination.

Also in this area on Grosse Hamburger Strasse is a memorial sculpture to the Holocaust in front of what was Berlin's oldest Jewish cemetery, which dates back to 1672, and once 12,000 of the city's Jews were buried. The Gestapo removed most of the graves, turning the area into a park. Today, only a single grave remains, that of the philosopher Moses Mendelssohn. It was fitted with a new headstone in 1990.

This year, the City of Berlin, in conjunction with the Humboldt University and the rest of the scientific world, is commemorating the 100th anniversary of Albert Einstein's publication of three papers on relativity. Einstein and many of Germany's talented Jewish scientists, writers, film makers, and actors fled Germany in the early 1930s as Hitler rose to power. Some of these scientists later received the Nobel Prize for their work that was done in Germany.

Off Potsdamer Platz, once a site along the infamous Berlin Wall, is Ben-Gurion Strasse, a block-long street now named for the first prime minister of Israel. Save for a few sections and historical street markers, the Berlin Wall has been dismantled, obliterating the line that once divided West Berlin from East.

Along the Platz der Republik, a square in front of the Reichstag, is Yitzhak Rabin Strasse, renamed in honor of the assassinated former prime minister of Israel and 1994 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate.

I really can't say if Berlin is representative of the rest of Germany. I'm not naïve enough to not recognize that there are Germans who are bitter about the attention that has been given to a single group, the large sums spent on memorials, the maintenance of museums and concentration camps, and the financial reparations paid to Holocaust survivors. Meanwhile Germany and many of its European Union partners struggle with their own financial problems and high unemployment. It's money, they say could be put to better use for Germans.

However, there are Germans who feel that such public displays of contrition and reparations are the very least the country can do in return for its systematic eradication of six million Jews.

Unfortunately these financial burdens have helped to stoke anti-Semitism in Germany and elsewhere in Europe. This bitterness is expressed in many ways. There have been marked increases in anti-Semitic graffiti, angry letters about Jews in newspapers, verbal taunts, desecration of headstones and gravesites. Some synagogues have been torched.

Even the recently completed Holocaust Memorial was defaced with yellow Stars of David, reminiscent of the yellow stars German Jews were forced to wear under the Nuremberg Laws to easily distinguish themselves from Aryan Germans.

From the street, it is not hard to recognize many of Berlin's Jewish museums, synagogues, and community centers because they generally have sidewalk barricades and the omnipresent police guards on patrol. Inside the buildings, metal detectors are commonplace.

It seems that, on one hand, Berlin and perhaps hopefully the rest of Germany has benefited greatly from the lessons learned from defeat 60 years ago and has moved on to better things. On the other hand, there is a significant group that still harbors anti-Semitic views.

Howard M. Berlin lives in Wilmington