On Thu, 01 May 2008 20:59:48 -0700, poldy wrote:
>In article <67sm24F2ou6f4U1@mid.uni-berlin.de>,
> Wolfgang Schwanke wrote:
>
>> What makes you think that is being done? I have been taught the history
>> of WW2 and the 3rd reich extensively in school; television and
>> newspapers have full of these subjects for as long as I can remember.
>> Several people younger than me (West Germans born in the 1980s) have
>> told me that their history classes skipped several periods, but that
>> they were taught the Nazi era several times over(!) at different ages
>> to the point that their image of German history is totally overshadowed
>> by it. I can't say this is true for the education of my generation
>> (mid-1960s), but the 3rd reich was certainly in it and not "sanitised"
>> in any way.
>
>Do Germans visit places like the Holocaust Memorial or the Jewish Museum
>in Berlin?
Yes.
>
>Or are those places more for foreign tourists?
No.
>
>Seem to recall tour operators running day trips to concentration camps
>too.
Several operators do tours to Sachsenhausen concentration camp which
is near Berlin.
There are also tours of "Jewish Berlin" - it's easy to forget that
prior to the Nazis there were 160,000 Jews in Berlin with a thriving
culture - names such as Max Reinhardt, Albert Einstein, the press
barons Leopold Ullstein, August Scherl and Rudolf Mosse, the painter
Max Liebermann and many others. The big department stores - KaDeWe,
Wertheim, Kaufhof and Hertie (founded by Hermann Tietz) were also
Jewish owned, as were the fashion shops around Hausvogteiplatz.
There's a lot of interest amongst Germans in this past and it's not
hidden away either - the steps leading up from Hausvogteiplatz
Underground station have the names of the fashion firms engraved - and
when they were appropriated by the Nazis and what happened to the
former owners. All through the city there are "Stolpersteine"- plaques
in the pavements (sidewalks) stating who lived at a particular address
and what happend to them - i.e. when they were deported and murdered
in the death-camps.
Recently the "Zug der Errinerrung" - the "Remembrance Train" came to
Berlin for 10 days - a couple of coaches with an exhibition about the
deportation and murder of children throughout Europe. Thousands
visited the train - often 2-hour queues to get in.
Worth a read is "Easier Fatherland" by Steve Crawshaw (Continuum
Books: London and New York) - it looks at various phases in Germany
coming to terms with its past. In the aftermath of the war and during
the "Economic Miracle" was shock and denial and "but look at how we
suffered too with the deportations from Poland and the Sudetenland",
followed by a gradual but full acknowledgement of the horrors of the
Nazi period.
Final point - Jewish Berlin is up and running again.There was a phase
where the city's surviving Jews had the "packed bag syndrome" - let's
hang around and see what happens - if it gets nasty again we'll leave.
The attitude changed to "dammit, we're staying - if we leave then
Hitler will have won". There has been considerable Jewish immigration,
particularly from the former Soviet Union, and latterly from other
European countries and the USA as well. There are Jewish theatres,
kosher restaurants, Jewish street festivals - and the facade of the
neo-Moorish synagogue in Oranienburger Str has been restored to its
former glory.
Keith (formerly of Bristol UK)
now moved to Berlin/nach Berlin umgezogen |