logos999

>Germany started two world wars in the last century
At least those who went to a German high school learned that Germany alone didn't start WWI. Oh well, history is rewritten over and over again with a different outcome dependig on politics. Facts hardly interest anymore.

kenav

Hi Ingo -

I don't think you can go anywhere and just see buildings as buildings. They are a markers of the culture - and that culture is created by people. The buildings, landmarks, are indicators of the culture itself.

It could be hard to just look at a "thing" and divorce it from the place that you are in, and its history It's the history of the place (all the influences that have caused that particular place to be unique), that makes everything look the way it does and gives each area its character.

Anyway, that's my opinion.

kenav

Two other things ---

1 - I know many Jews who won't go to France because of the uprise in antisemitic incidents the past few years.

2 - Anyone here who is Jewish feel uncomfortable wearing a Jewish star when in Europe? If so, why?

hausfrau

I appreciate the comments of many on this thread. I hope we can maintain a civil tone.

"So many of you don't seem to understand why a Jew would feel funny about ging to Germany in 2007? The Germans wanted to WIPE OUT THE JEWS FROM THE FACE OF THE EARTH!"

No one on this board is denying the Holocaust, and no one is questioning why a Jew might feel uncomfortable about visiting Germany. The objection is to the modern anti-German sentiment being expressed. And saying "the Germans" wanted to wipe the Jews off the face of the earth is a bit like saying "the Americans" support the war in Iraq.

"And after 59 posts, not a single comment about the non-Jews who also died in concentration camps in Germany."

Good point. I was going to bring this up but decided to stay within the frame of the OP's question. This story is very well presented at Dachau, which started as a political prison for opponents of Hitler, before WWII began. It is important to note that virtually all Germans in positions of power who opposed Hitler were imprisoned or executed.

"There are many other facets (gays, other countries, US actions, other genocides, etc.) that could be discussed but were not 'commented' on."

I and several others mentioned multiple examples. And further on, Robespierre makes excellent points about other genocides.

"signs to the [Dachau] 'museum' were tiny, rusted in high grass, and most of the displays werein German."

Dachau now has excellent visitor resources, an incredible exhibition in German AND English, audio tours, etc. It would take hours, if not days, to read all of the information there. If you have not been to Dachau since the new exhibition was installed, it is worth a return visit.

"Denouncing an entire country after 60 years is one small way to make sure it doesn't happen again."

I am not purporting to know what if feels like to be Jewish, only that I have known many Jews and know about their feelings towards Germany. But such an attitude is EXACTLY how to ensure that it DOES happen again...somewhere else, to someone else. When does it stop? (Do you renounce the USA and hate all Americans for our decimation of Native Americans?)

USNR makes perhaps the best, and most frightening, point. How much control does the average citizen, or even a group of like-minded citizens, have over the actions of their own government?

Ingo

Hi logos! As far as I know history from 100 years ago is considered 'ancient' history in America. I think we can forgive them to mix up some facts of 'ancient' history, eh? ;-)

Hi kenav,

as I said, just curious. And I agree, culture and buildings are created by people. So are the memorial places for jewish (and other) victims of the Nazi era. I can understand the emotional turmoil when visiting Germany, but isn't this the only way to get evidence that people have changed here and learned from the past?

Even if people with jewish ancestors/jewish people don't feel an urge to visit Germany (which is in some way understandable) they should at least acknowledge the effort that the younger generations have made. This is what I miss in some of the statements on this thread.

glsebs

This is a very timely forum for me as I have grappled with the decision to visit Berlin at the end of a 10 day cruise in Europe next May. My husband and I are both Jewish and love to travel to new places.

We wanted to extend our vacation a few days and visit a city we had not been to. We have visited Europe many times, but never been to Germany. Berlin has so much history and a thriving Jewish population. I did some research and there is a tour company there "Milk and Honey" which was started by two Jewish women living in Berlin and gives tours on "Jewish Berlin". When I discovered this company, we decided to visit Berlin next May after our cruise. We plan to use this tour company to help us plan our three days in Berlin.

An interesting question posed by Ingo about why a Jew would not want to go to Germany. In my case, I think it is the fact that I almost feel disloyal to my ancestors who suffered so at the hands of the Nazis, a time in history that was was not so long ago. That being said, we did go ahead and book our flight home from Berlin and will be there for three days next May.

As far as visiting Paris, we were there this May and sat next to a couple from Israel at a cafe in the Marais. We chatted with them, and when we found out they were Israeli, we asked them if they had any problem visiting France because of the increased anti semitism. Some of our Jewish friends said they would never go there and questioned our visit. They said, no, and that if they wanted to avoid countries where there is anti semitism, they would never be able to leave Israel. I thought this was an interesting anecodote relating to Jews visiting France!

nbujic

"At least those who went to a German high school learned that Germany alone didn't start WWI. "

Japanese school books never included the atrocities committed by their soldiers in WWII.
It does not mean it did not happen.

Cimbrone

Ingo, you ask a very fair question. I can only answer for myself. It is definitely the language, the place, the food, the culture all of which, as a Jew, I cannot help thinking of in terms of what happened to my family 60 years ago. The German people I have known are, for the most part, lovely. I do think Germany has done a great deal to try and atone for it's Nazi past.

As I said before, Vienna feels much creepier to me than Berlin (I've been to both). Perhaps this is because it wasn't symbolically cleansed of its collaborationist past through massive allied bombing, and still looks like it did when Hitler spoke from the balcony of the Hapsburg palace. More likely, it's because I've read about the polls of Austrians who still, in great numbers, hold contempt for Jews, supported Waldheim, and were for a long time in denial about their complicity in the "final solution."

My "father in law", who was in the Pacific during World War II still won't eat rice. Some things are highly emotional. We need to accept that. But no, I don't hold the new generations of Germans, Japanese, or Italians responsible for genocide or for the War. Like I said, I've been to Germany. But you will be hard-pressed to find a Jew with any kind of ethnic identity who isn't somewhat uncomfortable with Germanic culture.

RM67

Whilst I think it can sometimes make sense to avoid a country in protest at current political practices (with some exceptions - it depends if a boycott hurts ordinary people and their living), avoiding a country because of long past events doesn't make much sense to me.

While I can understand that people who were around at the time and suffered directly, or witnessed such suffering, might never be able to get past that, new generations should be able to - or how do we ever move on?

There is a quite chilling comment on this thread about denouncing a country 60 years on, to make sure it doesn't happen again. I don't follow the logic of that at all. By all means denounce what happened in the past and those who were involved. But you can't denounce people who were long after such acts took place, who weren't involved in those atrocities in any way and have never supposted their occurance.

RM67

That should have said ' you can't denounce people who were born long after the atrocities'

nbujic

"
There is a quite chilling comment on this thread about denouncing a country 60 years on",
one may or may not denounce Germany or Germans for what happened in the past, but one can also chose not to spend holidays in a country where they feel ill at ease.

logos999

Well, nbujic you're misinformed about the facts.

fnarf999

Only 10% of Germans may have belonged to the Nazi Party, but the persecution and elimination of the Jews from Germany was enormously popular. It is natural that after the war people would fall over themselves trying to back away from that losing proposition, but during the 1930s almost every German supported it, in ALL of its implications, including the death camps.

After the war they said "we didn't know" but before the war they helped build it, staff it, and load people into it.

Watch the 1990 movie "The Nasty Girl", the true story of what happened to Anna Rosmus when she tried to find out what her town (Passau) did during the Holocaust.

It is perhaps true to say that it could have happened anywhere; that people in groups learn to willingly and even eagerly participate in things that they would in other circumstances find abhorrent. But it did happen there, in Germany; and if the war had come out differently (basically, if Germany had had twice the manufacturing capacity and raw materials that they did), it would have been completed, and Germans today would be celebrating it.

There is a vast generational literature of questioning and recrimination in German, dating back to the 1960s, where this topic is discussed. It is one of THE central issues of the European (as opposed to American) idea of what "the Sixties" means. Ironically, one of the leading lights of that discussion, Gunther Grass, was recently revealed to have been a member of the Waffen SS.

Remember also that a surprising number of the post-war leaders of German-speaking countries, right up into the 1980s, were Nazis. Remember Kurt Waldheim? Of course, it is almost inevitable that this would be so.

Remember also that "Germany" was a very different thing in 1930 than it is today. Germany's Jewish population has recovered to some extent, but virtually all of Austria's Jews are gone -- the Jewish population of Austria today is perhaps 2 or 3 percent of 1930's.

In Poland also there are almost no Jews today; 90% of them were killed, and virtually of the remaining ones emigrated to the US or other countries. The last state campaign to expel Jews from Poland took place in the LATE NINETEEN-SIXTIES.

And of course we see here from Schuler's comment that some of the attitudes towards Jews that made the Holocaust possible still exist, even in Switzerland (a "neutral" country that cooperated extensively with the Nazis, served as their secret bankers, and still holds billions of dollars worth of the unclaimed property of the dead).

Should it make you not go to Germany? No, of course not. The Nazis and their sympathizers are either dead or extremely aged. Their children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren are among the most peaceful, tolerant people on earth. Europeans in general have had the lust for extermination and war beaten out of them.

If you are looking for explicit Jew-hatred today, you need to visit the Middle East. Syria and Egypt have both recently aired expensive TV productions of "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" (the foundation document of anti-semitism), and a few years ago "Mein Kampf" was at the top of the Turkish best-seller list.

If anything the charm of the Germans today should serve as a warning to us, as Americans, that in the right conditions we would enthusiastically participate in very similar atrocities. Of course, our "Hitler" would come not with swastikas and salutes, or "carrying pictures of Chairman Mao", to quote John Lennon, but with a bible and a flag and a baseball team. They will pick the symbols that resonate.

fnarf999

France is by far the most Jewish country in Europe.

kleeblatt

Well said fnarf.

E_M

Yes, yes...no one is holding anyone else responsible for anyone else's actions. But emotional feelings and triggers are funny things and surely we can accept the answer, "I just don't feel comfortable going there at this time."

LN

My thoughts FWIW I've been to Dachau and to the Holocaust Museum in Wash DC. I was a bit surprised at the number of children visiting Dachau on the day I was there. These German youngsters (probably older than 13) were being shown what their ancestors tried to do to the Jews and many of these youngsters shed tears.

We cannot allow ourselves to forget atrocities like this and we must keep our children informed.

Robespierre

"An interesting question posed by Ingo about why a Jew would not want to go to Germany. In my case, I think it is the fact that I almost feel disloyal to my ancestors who suffered so at the hands of the Nazis..."

If you avoided every country where Jews suffered at the hands of the Nazis, you would wind up with a very short list of acceptable places.

annhig

another thought.

at school, i came across the "migram" experiments - conducted by Stanley mnigram, an american [i believe] psychologist. he got people off the street to enter a lab, and "teach" other "volunteers" [who were in fact actors] by means of ever stronger electric shocks. [which were simulated].

very few refused.

the point was that nearly all of of us are capable of anything, given sufficent pressure.

food for thought.

regards, ann

annw

That would be Stanley Milgram, who did the infamous Milgram experiments.

The Stanford Prison Experiment is a more recent social psychology experiment (well, about 30 years ago) wherein the randomly assigned jailers and prisoners started becoming their roles.

If you're interested:
http://www.prisonexp.org/