Why I Went To Germany

     I guess it’s time I explain. 

Every time I’ve told a Jewish friend that my family was going to Germany, the friend has responded with a double-take.

“You’re going where?”

Before the trip I responded to this a little resentfully by saying, “There’s more to Germany than the Holocaust,” and then I’d explaim a little of our itinerary, glossing briefly over the stops that had to do with Nazi or concentration camp history. I know that for most of my friends, Germany can only be associated with those horrors. When I was dismissive of that association, I wasn’t really giving the whole picture of why it feels different for me.

The person in my family I most associate with World War II history is my Opa. He was my dad’s dad, and he was a German Jew. He loved his childhood home and he loved the German language. As a result I didn’t grow up with the knee-jerk reaction that so many others do against Germany. Instead I learned the language and found it easier and more fun than Hebrew or Spanish. It didn’t really matter what associations came with each of those languages. German was the one I could actually speak a little with someone. It was the one with the funniest books and even animated show “The Pappenheimers.” My public high school German teacher, Herr Curtis, was the best language teacher I ever had, and on this trip I began to remember the songs we always sang on Fridays as well as the history he taught us so passionately about things like The White Rose resistance group and about the Berlin Wall. 

So what drew me personally most to Germany was a relative who had a major impact on my life, and then by extension, a teacher who nurtured a connection to something my grandfather loved. 

With those things in mind, I’d like to share a bit with you about our trip, and in order to bring the most meaning, I will be sharing thematically rather than chronologically. The first half of our trip was a road trip through southern Germany into Bavaria. The second half we just stayed put in Berlin. I’m going to start the story here because this is the piece most significant around my grandfather.

My Opa was a student in Gymnasium (secondary school) when things started to get scary in Germany. His Uncle Walter took him in in a house south of Berlin in 1927. My Opa wrote about it in a memoir, describing the house as a beautiful little villa. He would only live there a few years, but described those as some of his happiest. Ahead of our trip, I took a chance and wrote a letter to the address in my memoir. To my surprise, I received a reply and was able to arrange to see the house in person!

So Tuesday night of our Berlin week, we took an Uber south to Paul Krause Strasse. Just as my grandfather had described, there was a little alleyway with bushes that looked like tiny trees, and then a beautiful “hauschen” (little house) as Uncle Walter had described it ironically. It wasn’t so much that the house was large as that it was regal with a tower and a gorgeous view of garden and the forest beyond it. The family that welcomed us in spoke English well enough that I didn’t try my German (at least at first). They were as eager to learn from me as I was to learn from them. Cornelia and Joachim showed us an album of old sepia photos of the house. They used it as a reference to share changes in the house. For example, the wall has been shifted in the place where a “haus frau” would have made her appearance when serving the evening meal. Now that stairway is obscured. In another photo, a woman is sitting in a parlor. They asked if I knew who she was and we are now researching it. They showed us the maid’s room (something that always interests me in these kinds of houses) and how the master bedroom and bathroom were closed off, leaving us to speculate together as to what she did for a bathroom. They showed us renovations such as how the attic that once was only storage now is a beautiful office.

All of this was exciting for me as I merged my Opa’s writings and my imagination with what I actually saw in front of me, but I also wondered what it meant to these strangers to have me show up there. When I first sat down with them they clarified, “Your grandfather was Jewish?” Well, yes, and that means that at some point, this house that had been purchased honestly by this family in the 1980’s had essentially been stolen. 

As the Nazis took power, Opa’s Uncle had the foresight to cut his losses and get out of town. He was wealthy and smart enough to keep a lot of that wealth in foreign banks. So since it was illegal for Jews to sell property, he handed his keys over to his friend and took his family away to Mallorca. As far as I know, he never got compensation for his house. 

Since this experience I’ve wondered if the family was afraid to have me show up at their house. Did they fear that I would demand it back? I’ve also learned now about government restitution. My dad says Opa was offered a check years ago and turned it down. I want to learn more about this.

In any way, just to tie up at least a little of my Opa’s story, after leaving Berlin, My Opa made a life with Uncle Walter in Mallorca at a stationary store. Later he moved again and joined the American army. By then, with all his experience and knack for learning languages he became translator and was referred to as “Webster” whose American colleagues found his English to be better than their own. This aspect of him is something I’ve been thinking about a lot the past few years as I’ve started to wonder if maybe I’m better at languages than I’ve ever given myself credit for before. But that will be a discussion for another post. 

Stay tuned…