Randi Kreiss

Finding a world of remembrance in Berlin

Posted

I walked up to the concierge at my hotel and asked him, “Can you direct me to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe?” He said, “Oh yes, madam, let me show you on the map. It’s just a short walk from here.” As if I were inquiring about a stroll to a café.

It wasn’t until I walked out into the street that I realize how bizarre the exchange was, how strange my inquiry and how banal his reply. We were talking about a memorial site in Berlin that stands in remembrance to the six million Jews who were killed by the Nazis.

My week in Berlin has been an education and an immersion in history, illuminating and disturbing. I didn’t expect to feel the particular power of being here, in the place where so many suffered and died. In our home communities, most of us have heard survivors bear witness, seen photos of the synagogues torched on Kristallnacht and viewed the awful memorabilia of the war in Germany. We’ve all read our share of histories and novels about the Nazi era. We are not uneducated about the Holocaust. Still, being here is different.

Three days ago, when I stood at the former Gestapo headquarters in the center of Berlin, now the Topography of Terror Exhibit, I felt the chill of those dark years. I realized that only accidents of time and place put my family in a new, safe country, out of harm’s way.

It isn’t even the prominent exhibits and museums that focus one’s attention so acutely. What speak to the depth and breath of the evil perpetrated by the Nazis between 1933 and 1945 are the thousands of small memorials integrated into the life of modern Berlin. Throughout the city, and it is a big city, there are art installations and commemorative plaques and murals that drag the past into the present and make it a part of Berlin’s daily life.

Most of these were created in the past 20 or 30 years, as Germany came to terms with its past. New generations have taken brave steps forward in acknowledging the country’s conflicted history. They have brought the story of that time out of the shadows, forcing people who come and go to work and school to consider what took place in this city 70 years ago.

For example, at the busy Friedreichstrasse train station stands a sculpture of children, in remembrance of the thousands of Jewish children who were sent to England in the famous Kindertransports of 1938 to 1940.

In one pocket park there is a sculpture of an ordinary kitchen table and a toppled chair, evoking the sudden intrusion into normal life, as SS soldiers raided Jewish homes. In one neighborhood, there are recreated banners posting the Nuremberg Laws of 1935: Jews may not own businesses, may not work as doctors, may not attend university, must wear Stars of David, may not vote, may not travel, may not own pets, and the pets they have must be killed. Today, ordinary Berliners live their lives with these banners fully visible.

And in the old Jewish neighborhoods where only a handful of Jews survive, there are small bronze steppingstones, or stolperstein, embedded in the sidewalks in front of many apartment houses. These tiny plates, 3.9 inches square, state the name of the former Jewish resident, the date he or she was deported and to which camp. Begun in 1992 by artist Gunter Demnig, the project now includes more than 55,000 steppingstones throughout European countries formerly occupied by the Nazis.

The Nazi reign was unique in its brutal efficiency. The meticulously organized plans to exterminate the Jews and “undesirables” of Europe were effective. Jewish citizens who felt as German as I feel American were driven from their homes and slaughtered.

Many of the large museums include areas called “voids,” deep dark spaces, or dead ends, an artist’s concept of what the annihilation of an entire people connotes. What happened here speaks to a horrific lapse of humanity and common decency — another kind of void.

I wish everyone could visit Berlin. It is a thrilling city, with modern construction, provocative art, delicious food and world-class museums. The streets are bustling, the people welcoming. But I hope visitors would take a moment to notice the memorial plaques on the sidewalks in front of many residential buildings throughout the city.

Six million is an incomprehensible number. So, consider just one. A small bronze steppingstone in the entranceway to one apartment in the former Jewish neighborhood of Charlottenberg reads (translated): “Here lived Hans Jacobson, born 1910, deported 1943, murdered in Auschwitz.”

To date, thousands of stolperstein have been installed in Berlin. The artist says they are there not so much to say that the person died, but that he or she lived.

Copyright © 2016 Randi Kreiss. Randi can be reached at randik3@aol.com.