Newspapers / The Charlotte Jewish News … / May 1, 1985, edition 1 / Page 12
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Page 12-THE NEWS-May, 1985 Teaching Germans ^ cont’d from p. 5 About The Holocaust— tions addressed to the speakers, but the participants talked and remembered, dredging out memories that had been dormant for many years, such as, “What did we know?” And know they did! One participant said “I remember that we had two kinds of soap, one made of clay substance for the laundry and one for the face and body that was soft and called *Kohn soap’.” Questions were asked, such as, “Does not every war bring cruelty and acts of hor ror with it?” to that I could on ly say, “Correct historicaUy, but this war was used as a cover-up for the committing of the most unspeakable horrors of them all.” The teachers felt that their students seemed to shut out the realization that the Holocaust concerned them directly, and I advised them to make their students project in to their own future and how they would act if opportunity and demand for acts of power and cruelty without respon sibility were demanded of them in the name of a govern ment, in the name of a spur- rious patriotism. They could understand that and see the possibility of engaging the children in this way. Professor Kopecki spoke on the increase in the “Auschwitz lie” which is spread, unfor tunately, with immunity and seems to find an echo in the young, romantic or unem ployed youth. She pointed out the unending fight that her orgemization, The Committee of the Survivors of Auschwitz and other Concentration Camps, leads against these lies. It euneizes me how many “Righteous Gentiles” there are in today's Germany who are willing to work and fight side by side with p>eople like us to make sure that the legacy of the survivor’s tale con tinues and the detractors and denigrators are silenced. Pro fessor Kopecki’s represen tative, who represents her periodical and the interests of the survivors in Germany, is Klaus, Baron of Muench- hausen, a direct descendant of the famous Baron von Muen- chhausen. Klaus von Muen- chhausen is a civil servant; he almost lost his job recently for fighting side by side with Lilli Kopecki to insist on a revision of a book, a master’s thesis. The book deals with selected aspects of the origin of the near East conflict, and is a perfect example of the newest phase of anti-Semitism. Pro fessor Kopecki received an apology of the school authorities for having publish ed the book in its present form without checking the content, which had been approved by a left-oriented anti-Semite. This incident revealed to me that as many anti-Semites as there might be in Germany, today there is an nearly equal number of philo-Semites who are willing to put themselves on the line for Israel. Professor Kiopecki has a conference scheduled with Willy Brandt, head of the SPD Party and with Annemarie Renger, head of the Bundestag, to perhaps negotiate federal funding for seminars such as the one given by us for all of the districts of the Federal Republic. It is importemt to me that I describe my hostess, Meirlis Heinz. When asked why she involves herself so much with Israel and the Holocaust, she says that many years ago the first survivor she met took her hand, and that she felt that forgiveness was being extend ed to her that she had not yet earned. And now she works tirelessly to e£u*n it. She takes Germans two and three times a year on tours to Israel, young ones, old ones, and not merely on the public tours but to her Kibbutz and her moshav where she is like a member of the family and makes her group become members of the family too. It seems really a paradox to note that efforts to immor talize and conunemorate the Holocaust in Germany seem to equal the efforts in the U.S. to deny it. Of course there is anti-Semitism in Germany. It seems, as my colleague on the panel Dan Shoebar, a second generation survivor said, anti- Semitism does not need Jews to exist. And there are precious few Jews in Ger many. But then the efforts of Professor Kopecki and myself are not directed to com memorate the Jews. They are directed to inform every non- Jewish adult and child while they are still in the school system, so that they are taught young enough to counteract any of the big lies that might be propagated later in their life. One teacher complained that he cannot get his students to really inter nalize the events of the Holocaust, that they see it as something not connected to them. I told him that as long as the computer that is the brain accepts the information in the maturing mind, the in formation will eventually be synthesized and used. But the foundation must be laid. There was no defensiveness or aggression in any of the teachers, whatever their age. Of course there were a few left- oriented students who brought up the comparison of Hilter’s storm troopers and the Israeli army in Lebanon. That seems to be the stereo typed line of these groups. The two Israeli lecturers handled these questions wliich I did not feel qualified to answer. One learns things one never expected in Germany, such as “Aktion Suehnezeichen,” a group of the Confessional Church, which has a branch in Washington, D.C. Their sole activity consists of working to help victims of the Third Reich of all denominations, but mainly Jews. They are also very active in Israel. The one quote which seemed to hang over the whole seminar was Theodor Adorno’s “The first aim of education must be the avoidance of a repetition of Auschwitz.” The usual question of “why did they go like lambs to the slaughter?” was raised and answered in detail by Pro fessor Kopecki and myself. It appears that each of the par ticipants older than 40 remembered exactly how peo ple disappeared, how Jewish property was given to other people, how closed railroad cars carrying unseen prisoners to unknown destinations in the east went through towns. But they did not know the ac tual details of Auschwitz, and it is this lack of knowledge that allows the Auschwitz lie to grow and prosper. It seems that freedom of the press in democratic countries is a blind power that allows for libel and slander of the dead as it allows pornography. There is a pro posal in front of the Bunde stag to prosecute those who spread the “Auschwitz lie.” Of course there are detractors who will try to reject this law that states a man does not have to legally accuse the denier, with all the concommi- tant costs. The denier can be accused by authorities for spreading the lie. But it is because people like Lilli Kopecki, who fight to halt the poison that is being spewed, that we must help such efforts and perhaps involve ourselves in such efforts and not simply write curricula. 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May 1, 1985, edition 1
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