Fortunately a remnant survived and kept their culture alive. Now, bolstered by recent immigration, Jews are reasserting their identity in Germany. The core group is 60,000--1% of the number killed throughout Europe in the war--but newcomers, mostly from the former Soviet Union, have doubled that figure. More Jews are arriving every month. Berlin has several Jewish-run cafes, shops, bookstores and the start of a real community, including the inevitable spats between new arrivals and the old guard. Throughout the country, 80 Jewish centers are active; new synagogues are opening and old ones are enjoying new life. If they continue to come, these Russian Jews could make Germany add a new section to Haus der Geschichte: the rebirth of Jewish culture.
German Jewish Community Begins Again
Religion: Bolstered by recent immigration, Jews are reasserting their identity in society.
Commentary
The work of the current immigration project is done by local Jews, but most of the financing comes from the German government as part of its Holocaust reparations program. Politicians from all sectors except the far right are supporting it. Then-Chancellor Helmut Kohl, addressing the graduating class of Brandeis University in Boston in May 1998, said: "It is my great desire that the synagogues in Germany be not only sites of historical remembrance but more and more centers of current Jewish life." Then-President Roman Herzog, speaking at the opening of the American Jewish Committee's office in Berlin a few months before, stated: "There is a chance that Jewish life can once again become an integral part of German culture and society."
This new beginning is one of the most positive developments here, but its smallness and tentativeness point up the dimensions of what was destroyed. The never-to-be-forgotten fact is that from France to Russia, from Norway to North Africa, Germans killed every Jew they could find. The loss is beyond repair, beyond comprehension, leaving only grief and a bitter determination to protect those who remain.
This carnage also crippled German society. By murdering so many of its own citizens, Germany lost the dynamic of two counterpoised cultures, different, sometimes conflicting, but basically complementary. These two elements had enriched each other for centuries, producing some of Europe's greatest achievements. Now, out of annihilation, a community begins again.
The two groups greet each other cautiously: "Germany is a very different country today. Welcome."
"We shall see. Shalom."
