After: Part One

I’m writing this post from an airplane 36,000 feet above the Atlantic off the coast of Iceland.  I left Berlin this morning after a surprisingly tear-free goodbye to M at the airport.  I think I’m cried out.  I gave up wearing mascara two days into this trip because there was no point when I ended up looking like a raccoon by noon anyways. 

It would be futile to attempt to tie up loose ends; we’re all on emotional roller coasters right now.  The interesting thing is, they seem to be relatively synchronized, at least with Natty and I.  It’s been up and down for days now, especially between Haus Wannsee on Wednesday, my story on Thursday, goodbyes on Friday, and a day in the city yesterday. 

After I told my story on Thursday, we were technically finished.  We had some final dialogues to do—wrap-ups, conclusions—and pay our bills at the desk, but other than that, the only thing left was breakfast, lunch, and a group photo.  Thursday night we were all up pretty late just having non-Holocaust related fun together, eating all of Natty’s chocolate and drinking wine and making jokes and just sitting around like a family.  I was okay on Friday because I knew that I’d see the facilitator and N one more time—we planned to meet for dinner—and I was staying with Natty at M’s home for the weekend.

Which, by the way, was so, so lovely.  He has a great, really welcoming house with a beautiful yard out back with roses and a playhouse on stilts that he built and a cherry tree.  R, his wife, is fantastic—gracious and funny and just wonderful, and they have two absolutely adorable sons.  It was the perfect place for the weekend, we could all be together and talk about things if we needed to, but really it was just so nice to be there.  Example: when we woke up on Saturday, M asked how it felt to have stayed in the house of somebody whose family was involved with the Nazis.  Even though we were technically done with the program, things like this came up all weekend; thoughts about our week, incredulity that it’s actually finished, musings on what happened, blah blah blah.  Anyways, Natty and I told him that it felt like staying in the home of a family member.  Because that’s what it was.

Saturday was really, really lovely.  We took the bahn into the city to go shopping and look around, and then M met up with us later on to have coffee with A and do some historical sight-seeing with us.  Even though we felt Hol-accosted (a word which spontaneously popped into my head, but which fits our emotions at the end of the week perfectly) we went to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews  of Europe (Denkmal für die ermordeten Juden Europas), which I think is one of the most thought-provoking out of the many I’ve seen. 

(some size perspective)

When you start to walk through, you can see over the stones, but they’re very quickly over your head, towering above and closing in.  As you go down the paths, you can’t see what’s coming as you come to the places where they intersect; people just jump out or bolt right past you.  They block sound, so it’s eerily quiet when you’re in the middle, and they’re all clean and dark and smooth.  From above, they appear to be arranged haphazardly, and the general effect kind of resembles a city skyline or a very, very crowded cemetery; but you know that they have been systematically arranged in perfectly neat rows.  They also look a little like coffins from above.  It really is a very well executed memorial.

Something I took note of is the language they use to talk and write about the Holocaust in Germany.  The entire time I was there, I never saw anything that said “died 24.4.1943” or “millions perished at Auschwitz-Birkenau.”  The word is “murdered.”  I don’t know if it’s accidental, just a fluke of the translation, or if they did it to assume responsibility (“murder” is a bivalent verb and implies the existence of both a murderer and a murdered, whereas “die” is simply something one does).  I’m going to go on the assumption it’s a purposeful choice; as I understand it, they are never careless when it comes to talking about the Holocaust. 

Anyways, the memorial was interesting, and there’s a small museum underneath.  It was pretty typical, as far as Holocaust museums go—honestly, it’s a little terrible that I am so used to them, that is pretty much the opposite of what needs to happen with the general populace.  However, at the very end, they have computers where you can search various databases for victims’ names.  Of course, I had to see if this Grandpa Charlie mistake was everywhere, or just that one book at the Wannsee House.

Well, it’s everywhere.  The good part is that the record I have now is pretty detailed, and hopefully it’s accurate besides the last part.  According to what I now have, Karl-Heinz Lichtenstein (b. 22/01/22) was taken on transport III/2, train Da76 from Köln to Theresienstadt on 27/07/1942 (exactly sixty years ago this Friday).  Two years later (28/09/1944), he was transferred to Auschwitz on transport Ek, listed as prisoner number 726.

Having information like this—dates, transport numbers, even prisoner numbers—is somehow comforting.  There is so much unknown about what happened in transport and in the camps.  My grandparents knew dozens of people before the war, including some close family members, whose fates they just don’t know.  It’s especially interesting when I come across a date that is relevant or approaching: this first transport to Theresienstadt is next Friday; the day we visited the memorial at the Grunewald bahn stop, there was a transport of 99 Jews taken from Berlin to Theresienstadt through that station; the final day of the program was the anniversary of the assassination attempt on Hitler, organized in part by Adam von Trott, to whom Haus Schwanenwerder is dedicated.  These things keep happening, and while I don’t want to sit and dwell over these moments, I can’t help but feel like they warrant some sort of recognition.  I quietly said kaddish for the victims of the transport from Grunewald, and every year on April 15^th I take a few minutes to think about the fact that my grandma was liberated that day. 

After finishing the program and having a few days at home, I know my next steps.  I know that I have to start doing research, and compiling information for my family’s story. I don’t know why I want so badly to have everything chronicled; maybe part of it has to do with the fact that there is so much we aren’t sure of, and there are a lot of facts I have to ask my dad about over and over again.  Most of it is just wanting to know, and wanting to be able to pass that information down to my children and grandchildren.  Again and again, I come back to the idea of bearing witness.  It’s become my touchstone for this trip, and since I figured it out, it’s an idea I keep coming back to.

I’m sorry for the lateness of this post; I did indeed start writing it just around Iceland, but then I needed to put it down for a few days, and I really did change it around (you’re lucky, the original was crap).  I’m back in real life now, and while I’m still thinking about all of this constantly, there are things interrupting that thought flow.  I’ll post again once or twice this week, and a few more times after that.  I can’t start researching yet—I’m not quite ready for that.  Some day soon, I will, and I’ll post updates on that here as well.

Finally, I want to thank you all for keeping up with this process.  There have been nearly 1,600 hits so far on this blog, and that absolutely baffles me.  I know people have been sending it along to their families, friends, and communities, and a handful of people in France, Russia, and Guatemala have been reading as well (who they are and how they found it, I have no idea), along with a large portion in Germany.  I hope you find something in here—hopefully a good something—and feel free to leave comments and such.  It’s good to know you’re all on this process with me, and by following, you’re becoming part of our story, so thank you. 

To Bear Witness (day five)

Last night, I told my story.

Originally (up until two minutes ago) I had planned on posting it story, roughly transcribed as I had told it. Now, writing from the loft at M’s beautiful home, listening to him play with his two sons outside, I know that is not what I need to write right now. In a few days, I might, but so much has happened in the past twenty-four hours.

The whole day yesterday, my stomach was in knots; I was incredibly nervous to tell my story, worried about not getting details right, and stressed about it not going how I wanted it to. Typical type-A neurosis. But then when I sat down in the circle—with N on one side and Natty on the other—and started talking, it all happened just as it was supposed to. I feel like this whole trip, and everything leading up to it, has happened just as it was supposed to.

Mine was the last story. Over the course of four days, we had listened to eleven others. They were incredible, and ranged from hopeful and enlightening to devastatingly sad and horrific. I have never been both so upset by and proud of the human capacity for destruction and survival.

But I realized that nobody quite pulled it off like my grandparents.

I don’t think I had ever told their story in any semblance of its entirety. Considering the amount of adrenaline pumping through my body and the knot that had been tightening in my chest all day, I was ready to cry. I expected to lose it once I got into telling their stories.

Throughout all twenty-four minutes of my story, I was beaming. I could not stop smiling—literally, I tried, and my face just wouldn’t. At first, I was confused, and couldn’t figure out why I felt so elated; then, I was just frustrated, because I felt like I should be crying.

And then, about halfway through, I realized that my story isn’t sad. It’s not horrifying or depressing or filled with depravity, although in a paradoxical way, every Holocaust story is, at its most basic level. That anger I wrote about is founded and reasonable, and some truly horrible things happened to my family. The Holocaust happened to them, with them, and around them, and as I wrote the other day, the Holocaust was really, really shitty. They were threatened, terrorized, beaten, and brutalized for two years.

However, that is just the background. The rest of their story is a series of fortunate happenings—I don’t want to label them miracles, but something aligned correctly somewhere in the universe. And before last night, I had never connected all of these non-coincidences in a single stream—they had just been interesting snapshots, not a story.

When I finished, I felt like a weight had been lifted off of me. I hadn’t even realized that I had been carrying anything, and I hadn’t understood that our story is so unbelievably, unabashedly, extraordinarily positive. Everyone in the room was smiling. It seemed so perfect to end with this, and to finally finish with the joy and hope we’d been working towards the whole time.

We all bear witness now. Before, each one of us had carried our stories alone—even though some of us were lucky enough to have support from our families, we all came into this experience on our own. My story is no longer just my own, and my family’s. Eleven other people carry this story now, as part of their own, and I carry theirs as part of mine. To bear witness is not just to know, and it’s not just to chronicle, or record, or repeat. To bear witness is not just an action, it’s a load you carry; that’s why they chose the verb “bear”. We feel the weight of our history and we shoulder it as best we can.

These stories are heavy, and they are full—of meaning, sadness, pain, guilt, joy, promise, and hope. They are overwhelming alone. But when you share the act of witnessing with eleven other people, it’s possible to bear.

Anger (day three)

It has been a long time since I've been angry or frustrated about my family's experience in the Holocaust, or the fact that it happened at all.  I moved past that early on, especially once I understood how my grandma lives her life.  Stories and pictures didn't affect me much, and I could walk through memorials without blinking an eye.  The Holocaust, and everything surrounding it, just made me deeply sad.

If I had written this post earlier, directly after our afternoon at the Wannsee house, it would be much different.  There would be a lot more swearing, and the sound of my typing would be much louder.  I've had some time to calm down; I went for a run, took a shower, ate dinner, and walked around for a bit.  A disclaimer: there are some choice words coming--if you have sensitive eyes or are a small child, shield your eyes.  

Consider yourselves warned. 

The Holocaust fucking sucks.  Today, I heard incredible stories of survival from two of the other participants.  Their families were absolutely decimated, almost entirely wiped out, between 1942 and 1945.  This isn't uncommon.  It's the rule.  I have never met a single Holocaust survivor whose family survived as a unit.  And the thing is, hearing the stories from the German participants, I'm starting to realize that no family who had any involvement, from any side, in the Holocaust, came out intact.  In any way.  

It's clear that the effects of genocide are multigenerational.  There are studies.  And I'm seeing it right here.  Perpetrators leave a legacy of guilt, shame, responsibility, anger, and loneliness.  Survivors pass on many of the same burdens, along with fear, paranoia, sadness, and blame (and dozens of other positive things, but that is not the point right now).  

I expected to be moved by the physical place I visited today. I stood in the room where Hitler gathered fifteen of his closest friends to figure out how to kill every Jew in Germany.  I looked at the same lakefront view, climbed up the same stairs, and walked through the same door as Hitler's henchmen.  And I was wholly unimpressed.  I read through a document which somebody had thought out carefully enough to include protocols for dealing with a child whose mother is one-quarter Jewish and whose father is one-half Jewish.  A twisted mind conceived those details. I wasn't angry yet; just disgusted and, as usual, sad.  And then I went upstairs to the library.

As I mentioned before, I have a copy of a sworn testimony stating that my grandmother died in Theresienstadt.  Today, I found a record in a Memorial Book in the Wannsee library stating that my grandpa, Karl-Heinz Lichtenstein, died in Auschwitz.

This feels like a slap in the face.

There is a picture of my grandma's parents' wedding that sits on a shelf in her apartment.  There are over 40 people in this photograph.  Growing up, she lived in Kobern with her parents and three brothers; the rest of her family was close by.  My grandpa also grew up surrounded by family in Oberwesel.

There are seven people in the photograph from my grandma's wedding.

She is ninety years old.  She was married to my grandpa Karl-Heinz for thirteen years, before he died at 38 from heart failure related to what happened while he was in Auschwitz.  She was married to my grandpa for forty-eight years before he died at the age of 99 on her birthday last year.  Five of the six other people in her wedding photograph are gone.

They--the Nazis, the men who sat in the conference room at the Wannsee house, the participants in the Holocaust--do not get to claim this name.  It infuriates me to think that this record exists, that Karl-Heinz Lichtenstein died in Auschwitz in 1944; he died in a clean hospital, surrounded by doctors trying to save his life, in Bergenfield, New Jersey, in 1960.  He had a family to leave behind, and a grandchild to be enraged about this.

Downstairs in the exhibit there are photographs from inside a barrack in Bergen-Belsen just after the liberation on April 15, 1945.  These women are emaciated and terrified.  Every time I see a photograph from somewhere I know she was, I search for my grandma's face; I don't know what I'd do if I found it.  And every time I don't see her, I imagine her just outside the frame, seeing what I see.  I am infuriated that her eyes had to look at and live in this image for nearly three years.  

I am used to pictures like this, but today, I have had enough.  Of course, I will never stop looking at them, in case I find one of her--but also so that they will never be unseen.  One of the German participants said that he also searches for his father's face in images where he thinks he might find him, and he doesn't have a clue what he'd do if he found him, either.  Another participant was similarly--loudly and passionately--angry that after pictures like these were taken, and after families were wiped out, the architects who sat in the conference room at Wannsee, and those who engineered the Holocaust from their own homes, walked free.  Some of them lived into their eighties.

This is bullshit.

The fact that this dialogue group has reason to exist is bullshit.
The fact that we are all here, generations after the Holocaust, bearing what has been passed down from our families, is so fucked up.
The fact that my grandmother has outlived nearly everyone she knew, but is recorded as having died in Theresienstadt in 1944 is beyond words.

I am finishing this post sitting in the foyer of the haus--by candlelight, because the light switch is in the kitchen, which is locked--in the middle of a thunderstorm (seriously, this is some Macbeth shit going on).  I am literally illuminated by the light of my laptop and a five-armed candelabra.  I have been writing for over an hour and a half, trying to simultaneously figure out what the hell I'm going to do tomorrow.

I will be the last in the group to tell my story.  I was going to post it here, but after talking to the facilitators, I've decided to wait until afterwards.  I think it's fitting that I'll be the last in the group.  I'm already less angry than I was about four paragraphs back.  We've already worked out some of what we talked about today in the dialogue, and to be honest, we were all pretty angry.  There was yelling involved.  Tomorrow we start again at 9 AM (it's past 11 here), and have stories all day.

I have no idea what my post tomorrow will look like.  I'm hoping it will be less angry, and I will attempt to write it out as accurately as possible.

While I was preparing for tomorrow, one of the facilitators skimmed over my grandma's three-page autobiography, translating the details I hadn't heard before.  When the liberators arrived, she was a skeleton, and covered in scratches.   She stayed in Bergen-Belsen for three months after she was liberated, working with the English soldiers as a translator.  Then, she writes,

Langsam wurden wir wieder Menschen.

"Slowly, we became humans again."

ARL

Joy (day two)

Today's stories were overwhelming and intense, and I have a lot more to sort out mentally after this morning's session.  But what helped, more than anything else could have, was that we continued our day after wrapping up the dialogue part.  Slowly, in bits and pieces, we resettled together and found a new norm.  In literature, there is always a new normal after the dénouement of a story; today was the practical application of that structure*.  

We spent a little bit of time at the old synagogue on Oranienburger Straße, which was unremarkable and, unfortunately, not too interesting. But then we sat at a café, refueled with cappuccinos and streuselkuchen, and talked--sometimes about Holocaust-related things, but mostly not.  We walked around the city to do some exploring and shopping, mostly joking around and taking pictures and yelling when we couldn't find one another.  We met up again to go to dinner at the Ampelmann restaurant, where conversation jumped around, sometimes touching upon the Holocaust, but always continuing on.  

Undoubtedly, the stories we share during dialogue bring us closer--there is no way they couldn't.  We sit in a circle and, aided by a translator/facilitator, tell secrets we may not have ever said aloud to anyone.  I have found myself verbalizing concepts I didn't know I felt or thought until they came out of my mouth.  This is unsurprising.  But it's the time we spend not talking about what we're here to talk about--on breaks between stories, on the bahn into the city, sitting at dinner, holding up purchases for approval while we stand in the middle of the Gendarmenmarkt--that really creates this group.  We have been here for two days, and it seems like weeks already.  I feel like I know these people on a level I haven't gotten to with friends I've known for years.

One of the facilitators calls One by One her family.  I am lucky to have an incredibly supportive family and group of friends, who are proud of what I'm doing and excited to hear all about this when I get back.  This is different: I can't quite explain it, but there's something going on here where the twelve of us, who really could not be more different, probably seem like part of some weird multinational family reunion when we're standing at the Hackescher Markt bahnhof laughing and speaking garbled Gerglish (Engman? some combination of the two).  

None of us can escape from the tragedy that binds us together.  It's already there, and it's an irreversible part of all of our pasts in a way that is more similar than we could have ever believed.  But while we're here, we're finding and creating joy everywhere and anywhere, almost all the time, and in every possible manner.  Even if it's not obviously gleeful (comparing purchases from the Ampelmann store), conscious (attempting to navigate towards an H&M in the middle of a rainstorm), or verbal (eating--universal joy), we're creating something on top of the foundation that we were placed into.  

This group--we, these people specifically--are here for a reason.  We are besher't.  I was nervous, for many reasons: I'm the youngest here by ten years, and that besides the next youngest, everyone here could be my parent; try as I might, I can be judgmental and picky about people; and did I mention that half of these people are descendants of Nazis and Nazi sympathizers?  That all seems so odd now.  I really can't put into words what it's like being here, with these incredible people to whom I'm now tied. 

The circumstances under which we are here are weighty and difficult.  People get uncomfortable when they catch bits of our conversation at restaurants.  Sometimes I get uncomfortable when I catch bits of our conversations at restaurants.  But at the same time, I am thoroughly enjoying myself.  It feels odd to be so joyful; I almost wrote wrong, that it feels wrong to have so much happiness when we are part of a group like this, where the content matter is so dark.  But we all carry our burdens, and while they're different, each of them rests on all of us.  We pass our stories along to one another, which helps to lighten the load, but in some ways, engaging in mutual happiness is the only way to continue the dialogue.

Legacy (day one)

Yesterday--which seems like last week--I had an incredible day walking around the city.  I was planning on writing a post, but I got to the house late and thought I'd include it in today's post.

Wrong.  Today overshadowed yesterday. I'll tell you about yesterday in person (complete with exaggerated hand gestures and possibly pantomime upon request); today needs to be written out.

Our group is ten participants and two facilitators: it's a mix of 2Gs and 3Gs from each side, spanning at least 40 years (I'm the youngest, and I'm pretty sure the oldest is well over 60).  There are 5 from each the survivors' side and the perpetrators' side, with six from Germany and four from the US--one of the 2Gs on the survivors' side lives in Berlin.

Each day, we have morning recap, two stories, lunch, an afternoon activity, and an evening session.  Tomorrow we go to the Jewish museum on Oranienburger ßtrasse in the afternoon; Wednesday we visit the Wannsee Conference house, where the Final Solution was engineered.  Evening sessions are sometimes guest speakers, or another story.  Stories are three parts: each person has half an hour to tell their story however they want; the next fifteen minutes are questions and clarifications; and the final portion gives each person a chance to respond to the story.

We jumped right in today at 10 AM.  The facilitators briefly told their stories, and we each went around and gave a short bio of who we are and why we're here.  Almost the entire group is made up of writers, filmmakers, journalists, and (best of all) teachers--for me, this was incredible.  We are what it means to bear witness.  By and large, we could not be more different--we vary in age, ethnic background, education level, socioeconomic stratus, etc., etc.--but we are all here to testify to our history, the one thing we do share.


This next part is hard to explain, but I'm going to try: we're here to talk about the Holocaust.  We all know that.  And I don't think it's ever very far from anyone's mind.  But when we're not in session, our conversation doesn't necessarily revolve around that aspect of our shared history.  Sometimes, we have more questions or points we want to talk about with somebody who said something that made us think, and we discuss it directly.  Otherwise, it often filters in through conversation.  We acknowledge that.  But it's not always there, which I think is key.  Obviously, we talked about food--a lot.  Any group of people will instantly bond over food (see: Jewtinas).  We covered family, educational theory and pedagogy (surprise surprise), travel, architecture, this, that, everything.  


Tonight after dinner I sat with two German 2Gs; both of them were 50 at the very least.  During session, I was sitting across from them as they openly shared their feelings of guilt, anger, fear, and sadness (more on that in a minute).  After dinner we sat at the end of our long table, drinking wine and eating chocolates we nabbed from the espresso bar in the lobby, chatting about food and travel and European culture.  We sat at the end of the table, giggling like twelve-year-olds, holding our pinkies out from our wine glasses, asking for crumpets in British accents.  We now have personal jokes.  I have personal jokes with two children of the Third Reich.  


That might bother some people.  Actually, I know for a fact it will bother some people.  But the fact of the matter is--and I had thought about it before, but really realized it today--these people are much more brave for doing this than I am.  I have nothing to be ashamed of in my past; I am proud and in awe of my grandma for generally kicking ass at life, and I will never, ever hide the fact that I am the grandchild of a holocaust survivor.  That is my legacy.  These people--friends? fellow participants?--have a much different load to bear.  Many of them didn't know (for sure or at all) that their families were involved in the Holocaust until recently, and they have to reconcile the identities of family members they thought they knew with the images formed by historical documents and testimonies. They came here ashamed of and burdened by their legacies, seeking forgiveness or comfort or nothing at all, because they didn't even feel like they deserved anything of us.

The thing is, they are creating their legacies here--not separate from the ones left by their families, but down a different path.  One of the facilitators says that in One by One, we consider our past during the present to change our future (or something like that).  M, one of the participants who went today, has spent the 10 years since he found out that his father was involved in the Nazi machine compiling a history of the town whose Jewish population his father decimated.  He's been gathering photographs, official documents, legal testimonies, and biographies from archives all over the world to create a legacy for this Jewish community.  He has been trying to figure out some way to do something for the survivors and their descendants of this town, something concrete.

When each of her grandchildren was born (there are five of us, plus one great-), my grandma said that we've won--meaning that each time the Jewish people grow, the Final Solution is stamped down once more.  I think I agree with that; but I think there is a second part of this that I hadn't expected, which is meaningful in a much different way.

What M is doing doesn't make up for what happened--the Mishnah Sanhedrin states that "whoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world" (Talmud Bavli, Sanhedrin 37a).  But it means something.  He's an educator, and he teaches his students about this specific community in a wider unit on the Holocaust.  He has young children, to whom he has already started to explain what the Holocaust was.  M isn't just creating his own legacy to pass on; he's compiling a legacy that these people can't pass on for themselves. 


I feel like I've been here a week already.  It's been a day and I already have enough to think about for a very long time.  I have four more days of this, plus two weekends of non-Holocaust-related things to sort out.  After how today went, I can't exactly promise happy frozen-yogurt posts; there's just so much to process.  It will most definitely be interesting.


Exhausted--more to come tomorrow, I'm sure.


ARL

Up in the Air

After almost 24 hours of travel (including three delayed flights...all three, all delayed, all the time) I'm writing this post from my hostel in Berlin.  I don't know if it's fully hit me yet that I'm actually here, even though everything is auf Deutsch; somehow, it's different from Israel, where even though I'm technically in a foreign country, I understand a large portion of the cultural nuances, I understand the language, and there's that whole part about the fact that we're all Jewish.  Here, not so much.  Thankfully, despite all the chaos of traveling, I've been very lucky to have encountered some pretty nice people willing to help out ("können Sie mir helfen, bitte?" is the key phrase of the day).  General rundown, and then some thought-thoughts:

BOS to JFK was pretty easy (5PM-6PM).  JFK is the worst airport on the entire planet.

JFK to CDG (left 9PM EST, arrived 10 AM? local) was late, but they did have free champagne and wine on the flight.  So that was good.  I tried to save the bottle for my mom--it had a chicken on it--but I forgot about it and the guy at security in Paris had a laugh over the fact that I hadn't finished it and forgot that it was still half-full in my bag...whoops.

We got into CDG late, so I ended up on a later flight to Tegel, which was also delayed both in the airport and again on the plane for missing passengers whose luggage had to be removed. However, I did meet a guy named Darren who is in some management capacity at Royal Caribbean; we chatted while we waited for the flight, and he woke me up because I totally passed out waiting to board the plane.  I hate overnight flights because you can't see where you are, and the world looks so amazing from a plane; the clouds were absolutely ridiculous between Paris and Berlin, and that never ceases to amaze me (pictures below do not do it justice).  It was a beautiful ride to Tegel, which is a teensy-tiny airport, and Darren found me again after the flight and offered a ride with him and his wife to a train station because he felt bad that I was just going to wing it and try to find this hostel  (generally I'm not in the habit of getting in cars with strangers, but I'm here, so clearly it was fine).  They were both super nice and dropped me off at the U-bahn; it took a while to get to the hostel, but I got in around 5.  

After I dropped my stuff, I walked around Warschauer Straße (the main street near the hostel).  I was pretty exhausted, so I didn't last long, but I did manage to find their frozen yogurt place.  Within 10 minutes.  The food in general looked pretty good, but I was overwhelmed by all the options so dinner ended up being roasted cashews, frozen yogurt (with rhubarb, pomegranate seeds, poppy seeds, and boba...!), and a massive bowl of vegan paprika-fennel soup.  Somehow I managed to drag myself back to the hostel, chatted with my roommates, and passed out for a few hours. 

#fröyölö

Warschauer Straße, covered in graffiti

Julie said it was pirate themed, which is a total lie

So that's that.  The first two flights were meh, but the flight from CDG to Tegel was lovely, and I actually managed to form some relatively coherent thoughts, which I wrote down and I'll keep in mind when everything starts up on Monday.  As follows:

As a 3G, I have a sense of pride at how extraordinary my grandma is.  There are pictures of her from the few years after the war (I'll try to post) smiling, happy, at the beach--there's a scandalous one of her blatantly making out with my grandpa Charlie, ew/aww--and I had trouble figuring out how they could look so happy with everything so close in their past, but here's the thing: they were just happy to be alive.  My grandma grew up with both parents, a bunch of grandparents, three brothers, and various other family members.  My grandpa Charlie also had a big family--a brother and sister, parents, grandparents, and aunts and uncles.  The picture of their wedding in the States is seven people: my grandma, Irene Wolff Lichtenstein; her brother Karl Wolff; my grandpa Charlie (KarlHeinz Lichtenstein); his brother Günther and sister Rita; his mom Selma Lichtenstein/Oma; and his 90-year-old paternal grandfather, Karl/Opa.  Many Karls.  But that's who was left, from this huge community; we don't feel that often, just joy at being alive.  

Knowing that, and having this sense of pride and gratefulness and wonder, I was thinking about how the other participants in this program--those whose families took active roles in carrying out the Holocaust--contemplate and consider their families' histories.  Is there a feeling that they have something to make up for? Can you still find pride in your family history? I know there are some participants who didn't know that their parents and grandparents were Nazis until much later in life--how do you build that knowledge into the schema of your family?

Anyways, on a different note, I just wanted to thank everyone again who has supported me re: this trip. I haven't even been here a day, but I can tell this is already going somewhere.   

Tomorrow at some point, one of the German participants is picking me up and bringing me to the house, so I can go for a run, get settled in, etc. before things start on Monday.  I'll post again either tomorrow night or the next.  

Gute Nacht!

ARL

Step 4: #bye

Leaving for the airport in twenty minutes.

Grandma's ring: on finger.
Forty pages of family photos, documents, and family trees: in folder.
Bags: packed and by the door.

Going through the motions of packing and physically putting everything together (and straightening my hair at 2 this morning so I don't have to deal with it on the plane) has really helped prepare me mentally.  I don't exactly know where I'm staying tomorrow night--possibly a hostel?--and I don't know what I'm going to be doing before I meet up with another participant to go to the house on Sunday night, but I'm miraculously okay with it.  I am so used to having everything planned and managed and ready, but I'm realizing that even though there is not much planned or managed right now, I am ready.  The next 48 hours don't matter much--it's the five days after that. 

I probably won't post until I get to Germany, so auf wiedersehen! 


#bye


ARL

Step 3: Tie Up Loose Ends

So I don't think it fully hit me that I leave tomorrow until this morning in minyan* while the cantor was doing a misheberach* for me, and everyone asked when I leave.  And my response was "...tomorrow." This trip is finally starting to feel real, which is scary and exciting and nerve-wracking and mind-blowing all at the same time.  Last night I went home to do laundry and write thank-you notes* (see Fundraising page about that) and give my mom a chance to fret some more. I called Delta today to register for the SkyMiles program so I can get points for all this flying I'm about to do.  I still have to get some currency exchanged, figure out where I'm staying on Saturday night (so unlike me to leave this until now...whoops), and pack (that's a big one), but things really are falling into place.  I'm meeting up with my aunt again tonight to get the ring and some more photographs, and to say goodbye to my Grandma before I leave. 

That's a big one.  I had a lot of anxiety over leaving, mostly tied to her--she's 90 and practically healthier than I am, minus the whole Alzheimer's bit (which most of my friends would tell you is a problem I have as well)--but I've still been so nervous to be so far away, maybe even more so because I'm going on this whole trip because of her.  That loose end will definitely be the hardest to tie up.  I'm even kind of sort of maybe okay with leaving work for a whole week.  But a whole week without my grandma, even though before Tuesday I hadn't seen her in three weeks, so far away, is still scary.  And unfortunately, I don't think she can figure out Skype.  I'll have bits of her life with me--I'll actually be surrounded by and immersed in her life, so that's helpful.

Last loose end tied up: today's issue of the Jewish Advocate has a pretty cool article.  For those of you with a subscription, just click here.  For those of you without, see below.  I've just stuck the whole thing right in here.  (I hope that's okay!)  Special super amazing thanks to Susie Davidson for putting this together and making it happen.  
 ______________________________________________________________________________

The Jewish Advocate

July 13, 2012 Edition

A trip into family’s darkest days

In Berlin, granddaughter to meet others affected by Shoah

By Susie Davidson

Special to the Advocate

Alyse Lichtenstein and her grandmother Irene Wolf.When Alyse Lichtenstein’s grandmother was her age, she was trapped in the Nazi murder machine.

This week, the Boston University senior departs for her grandmother’s native land, Germany, to meet with others directly or indirectly affected by the Holocaust: survivors, perpetrators, resisters, bystanders and those, like Lichtenstein, who are descendants.

They will gather in Berlin under the auspices of One by One ... Descendants of the Third Reich and the Holocaust in Dialogue, an international non-profit organization launched in 1995. Co-founders include Rosalie Gerut, a professional musician and 2G active at Kerem Shalom in Concord.

This is the first year that the program has been open to the 3Gs, the third generation since the Holocaust. Besides holding discussions, attendees will visit relevant historic sites.

“Through this experience, each side can explore the distinctive history and perspectives of the other,” said Lichtenstein, who with other 3G’s from the United States and Germany will stay in a house outside of Berlin for the five-day program. “[We’ll] get to know each other personally as we share meals and spend time together,” she said.

Lichtenstein, who lives in Framingham, has launched an appeal for help to defray the $2,300 cost of the trip. She is enrolled in BU’s School of Education, majoring in English education and English literature.

Lichtenstein’s grandmother, Irene Wolf, was born in 1921 in the picturesque village of Kobern on the Mosel River in Germany’s wine country. Wolf was imprisoned at Terezin outside Prague from 1942 until mid-1944, when she was transported to Auschwitz. In January 1945, she was marched more than 400 miles to Bergen-Belsen in northern Germany. She was liberated the following April. Today she lives in Peabody.

“My grandma has always been the image of quiet strength in the face of adversity, and she has always been clear about the fact that she has forgiven the actions of those who carried out the Holocaust,” said Lichtenstein. “She is the reason I feel so connected to this element of my family’s past.”

Lichtenstein recently attended the Café Europa event at Temple Reyim sponsored by the American Association of Jewish Holocaust Survivors and the German Consulate in Boston.

Looking ahead to her career, Lichtenstein said she would like to expand Holocaust education curricula. “My target demographic is urban youth, especially in Boston, to whom my personal history is foreign, intangible and, at times, unbelievable,” she said.

Lichtenstein, who leaves July 13 and returns July 22, said she would like to share her trip experiences with various community groups across Boston by giving presentations and hosting discussions.

To contribute to the trip, email arl2013@bu.edu or visit Lichtenstein’s blog, 3gtogermany.blogspot.com

________________________________________________________________________________

That's it...next post may very well be from the airport!

ARL


*minyan: a gathering of 10+ Jewish adults (generally over the age of 13).  In this context, I'm technically referring to shacharit, morning services, for which we had a minyan, which meant we could say kaddish, the prayer of mourning, and other various things for which a minyan is required.   I don't know that that cleared much up for you, but there's always Google.

*misheberach: literally "he who blesses" or "may the one who blesses." Generally a prayer said over the sick, but can also be applied for other things.  Like travel.

*Really, I can't thank everyone who contributed enough.  Check your mailboxes!

Step 2: "She's not afraid of anything"

As my departure date gets closer (126 hours and counting) I've started compiling the technical historical information I'll need when we start these groups.  Last night, I sat down with my Auntie Carole and my dad to hash out the details of who was where at what time and for how long.  I got a lot of background information--my grandma's life growing up, when she left home to train to be a nurse, etc.--which is the foundation I'll need to understand how her life changed throughout the Holocaust.  I also got two books, one about the Jewish hospital in Köln she worked at, and one about the Jewish families of Kobern, where her family was from; a one-page testimony she typed on the fiftieth anniversary of Kristallnacht about her experience that night; and twenty or so letters from people she knew before and during the war that she started saving once she was in the states (I'll scan/translate things and post them soon).  I also grabbed a few photo albums from her apartment, and I'll try to post some photos as well. 

Later this week, I'm going to meet up with my aunt again to get another photo album, probably the most important one, with old pictures of her family from her childhood before the war, her yellow star, and other artifacts.  Before they left their home, my grandma's family gave some belongings to a few neighbors they trusted; the Schneiders, the Danys, and one other family hid photo albums and other belongings in their homes through the war, and returned them safely to my grandma when she returned. 

As I started to get everything together, the fact that I'm leaving on Friday for this trip really started to sink in.  All through the evening, as my aunt and dad revealed details I didn't know about my grandma's life before and during the war, I found I had a difficult time holding myself together.  I know that when I get to Berlin, and I am sitting in a room with these other people--half of who share similar stories, and half of who fill in the other side of the story--the reality of the fact that this is actually my family we are talking about, my grandma who went through these things, is going to hit me.  Very hard.

 I'm taking a lot of these things with me--copies of photographs, written testimonies, letters--but there are two things (one of which I always carry with me anyways) which really make up the most powerful components of all of this stuff:

 The first is a sworn statement stored in the archives at Yad Vashem.  I knew this existed, and when I went to Israel last summer with Building Latina Jewish Bridges on Campus, I went into the hall of records and printed a copy.  It's a testimony from a man named Alex Salm stating that my grandma, Irene Wolff (now Wolf) died in Theresienstadt.  Again, I knew this was out there somewhere, but to actually have it with me and see it on paper was a whole different matter.  I can't exactly verbalize yet why this affects me so much, but we'll see if that changes by the end of next week.

The second is a silver ring, which I didn't know existed until last night.  When my grandma and grandpa Charlie went back to Kobern (I'm not sure at what point after they reunited--sometime between 1945 and 1947), they went into the remains of the synagogue that my grandma's family helped to build and dedicate.  On the ground, they found a few silver coins, and they had them melted down and made into rings, which they brought with them to the US.  My dad had one, which is gone now; my aunt has the other, which I'm taking with me.

That's a whole lot of rambling--hopefully as I gather my thoughts more concretely, these posts will make more sense.

Almost forgot--the title.  Last night, my dad told me another story that I'd never heard before.  In 1944 (I think), my grandma was transported from Theresienstadt (Terezin) to another camp, packed into open train cars.  On the trip, there was an Allied air raid--bombs were falling all around them, and they didn't know until the bombs were almost on the ground where they would land.  Shrapnel exploded everywhere, and some people in her car were hit and died.  As they kept moving, they worried about what would happen when they opened the doors at the station, and how mad the guards would be.  When they got to the station and open the doors, the kapo casually indicated where to pile the bodies: this was routine.  That is when she realized that they were in trouble--they were not being relocated, they were not just being transported--and the full scope of what was to come hit her.  Just that she understood.  I asked if she was afraid, because the way he told it, it didn't sound like she had been--just aware.  He replied, "she's not afraid of anything."  And she's not.  And that's part of why I'm going.  I know the things I'm going to find out on this trip, both in terms of historical facts and personal revelations, are going to be intense.  This whole trip is going to be intense.  But if my grandma can come out of those years of her life and be the person she is today--compassionate, willful, clever, and above all, fearless--I can do this.

ARL

Step 1: Book your flight

Most people complete step one as early as possible (like, say, February, when they planned to go on the trip).  I, however, have waited until approximately one hour ago to finish this part of the preparations, partly because I was waiting to hear back re: some donations, and partly because it was just so intimidating.  But, it's finally done, so here it is!


going
depart Logan on Friday, 7/13 at 3:57 PM  ✈ arrive at JFK at 5:29 PM ✈ depart JFK at 7:15 PM ✈ arrive at DeGaulle on Saturday, 7/14 at 8:35 AM ✈ depart DeGaulle at 10:20 AM ✈ arrive at Tegel at 12:00 PM


coming
depart Tegel on Sunday, 7/22 at 12:10 PM ✈ arrive in Amsterdam at 1:30 PM ✈ depart Amsterdam at 2:50 PM ✈ arrive in Boston at 4:55 PM


All in all, that's 19 hours and 57 minutes in the air, 4 hours and 51 minutes of layovers, and approximately 8,173 miles.  (#rasl)


Step 1: Complete.

More to come later!

ARL

Two Weeks

So I'm finally getting this up and running with less than two weeks to go before the trip (whoops).  Before I leave, I'll be posting information about the program along with details of my family history as I gather them.  Once I get to Berlin, I'll hopefully be able to post every day with reflections and such.   I'll post the schedule as well when I know a little bit more, but I do know that we'll be making some day trips out of the house we'll be staying in (Haus Schwanenwerder).

Here's the general gist of the program and why I'm going (as excerpted from a kind of cheesy letter I sent out to some local organizations):

I have recently been invited to participate in a program called “One by One” which seeks to bring together the grandchildren of Holocaust survivors and the grandchildren of perpetrators in a constructive dialogue. Through this experience, held in Germany this July, each side can explore the distinctive history and perspective of the other. This is the first year the program has been open to the third generation after the Holocaust, or “3Gs,” as we’re called; I’m honored to have the opportunity to engage in something so unique and life changing.

In this program, I, along with other 3Gs from across the country, would spend five days in a house outside Berlin with our German counterparts. We would participate in facilitated discussions and guided exercises, but we’d also be able to get to know each other personally as we share meals and spend time together. 

My grandma has always been the image of quiet strength in the face of adversity, and she has always been clear about the fact that she has forgiven the actions of those who carried out the Holocaust; she is the reason I feel so connected to this element of my family’s past.  As a junior studying at Boston University School of Education, I plan to enhance and enrich the currently available Holocaust education curricula; my target demographic is urban youth, especially in Boston, to whom my personal history is foreign, intangible, and, at times, unbelievable. This program would be an unparalleled experience that could inform not only my personal life and faith, but my future teaching as well.

So, that's it.  Two weeks from now, I'll be in Berlin, in a house with some 2Gs, a few other 3Gs, and some participants from the German perspective as well. 


Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for more.


ARL