A text relevant to the topic

Geoff Bloch was recently tasked with arguing the case for the affirmative at a debate put on by the JBD of Melbourne, on the topic of “Did God save the Jews during the Holocaust?”

This is not a debate about whether God saved individual Jews during the Holocaust. It is a debate about whether God saved “the Jews”. The definite article makes a significant difference. “The Jews” connotes the collective – Am Yisrael. Our focus must therefore be on whether God saved Am Yisrael during the Holocaust and I will present conclusive proof that He did.

However, before doing so, I would first like to explain why, in any event, it would be difficult, if not impossible, realistically to debate whether God saved individual Jews. The affirmative side could not possibly nominate which Jews may have been saved by God and which Jews may have survived by reason of their own wits, by the intervention of others or by sheer luck. How can anyone possibly know what role God played in any particular case? The negative side could harp on endlessly about the fact that God did not save millions of Jews. Even those naturally inclined to the affirmative side in this debate must acknowledge that God did not save six million individual Jews.

So let us therefore focus on the debate topic as stated and review the conclusive proof that God indeed saved Am Yisrael during the Holocaust.

The sheer scale and technology of the mass murder is what sets the Holocaust apart but it was not the first and only mass murder in Jewish history. Am Bnei Yisrael is first mentioned by our arch-enemy, Pharoah, after Joseph’s death. He issued an edict condemning Jewish males to be drowned in the Nile at birth and God knows how many more died from avodah kasha (slave labour). So from the very first moment we were referred to as Am Bnei Yisrael, we were targeted for annihilation. The destructions of the two Temples by the Babylonians and the Romans were accompanied by the murder of God knows how many more Jews. The list of our violent adversaries is a long one which also includes the Persians, the Greeks, the Crusades, the Inquisition, Chmelnitzky and many other pogroms. Throughout history, Am Yisrael has been targeted and Jews have been systematically murdered.

So our debate topic could just as well have been: “Did God save the Jews in Ancient Egypt?” or “Did God save the Jews during the Babylonian exile?” or “Did God save the Jews during the Inquisition?”. Our debate topic which relates to the Holocaust is therefore a variation on the same theme.

There is a very clear pattern of subjugation and survival over the broad sweep of Jewish history, of which the Holocaust is but the most recent example. We read on seder night: B’chol dor vador omdim aleinu lechaloteinu, v’hakadosh baruch hu matzileinu miyadam – In every generation they rise up to annihilate us, but God saves us from their hands. Every time a nation attacks the Jews, Jews die but Am Yisrael survives. Part of the pattern is that God always exacts midah k’neged midah (measure for measure) – Am Yisrael survives, but the attacking regime dies! Where is the great Babylonian empire? Where are the 127 Persian provinces? How about the once mighty Roman Empire? Or the Egyptian empire which was the great power in biblical times? The Third Reich was supposed to last a thousand years. They have all vanished. But Am Bnei Yisrael has remained and seen off all these antagonists, despite our tiny numbers. This miraculous pattern of subjugation and survival has been repeated over and over again for nearly 4,000 years. We are a part of that pattern and therefore part of the miracle!

Our survival defies all secular logic. We should have vanished thousands of years ago. But it is unarguable that our survival is consistent with God’s biblical promise that we will always endure. God has promised that we as a nation will never be utterly forsaken. What is the source of the biblical promise? It goes right back to the very beginning – to the days of Abraham.

Vahakimoti et briti beini u’veinecha u’ven zaracha achareicha l’dorotam livrit olam – I will establish an everlasting covenant with you and your descendants – lihyot lecha leilohim u’lezaracha achareicha – to be your God for all time. God then repeats the promise to the yet unborn Yitzchak: Vahakimoti et briti ito liv’rit olam l’zar’o acharav – I will establish an everlasting covenant with Yitzchak and his descendants (Bereshit 34).

There are many references to the brit olam, to God’s everlasting covenant, throughout our Scriptures.

I’m a barrister. I love a good circumstantial case. A strong circumstantial case is the best proof there is. If something fits a pattern, a modus operandi, it can be utterly persuasive beyond all reasonable doubt.

The divine promise that the Jews will always survive even in our darkest hour obviously does not confer invulnerability upon each and every Jew. But this does not constitute proof supporting the negative side in this debate. Jews being murdered is much more a problem for man than for God. God gave man the free will to build hospitals and schools or gas chambers and crematoria. The Holocaust is all about man’s inhumanity to man. It is not about God forsaking Am Yisrael. That is why the oft-heard question: “Where was God during the Holocaust?” is purely an emotional cry. It is not a logical question (as the social commentator Denis Prager has put it). The logical question is “Where was Man during the Holocaust?”

Could God have created a world in which the Holocaust could not have happened? A world without evil? An all-powerful God no doubt could have done so, but it would be a very different world indeed from the one we know. It would be a place where man did not have the free will to act as he chooses and would be reduced to behaving on instinct alone, like the rest of the animal kingdom. It logically follows that the great social polarities of good and evil could not exist in that world, just as they do not exist in the animal kingdom.

“Good” contemplates the possibility of “evil”. You cannot have the one without the other. So in order to have a world in which “good” is the divine paradigm to which mankind should aspire, that world must, by definition, also enable man to act unethically. So in this world, it is inevitable that there will be terrible episodes of evil. That is the world God created and why, perhaps, God does not intervene to prevent evil even though, from reading the scriptures, it is clear He abhors it.

Man’s ability to be taught the difference between good and evil is therefore ultimately what separates us from all other living creatures. Living in a society which values and esteems righteousness and goodness – concepts unknown in the animal kingdom – is what makes our lives worth living. We would NOT choose to live in a world in which those concepts were unknown, despite the superficial attraction of a world devoid of evil.

There is a powerful concept in the Torah known in Latin as imitato dei – imitating God. We are commanded to imitate God by the injunction Kedoshim tihyu, ki kadosh ani Hashem Eloheichem – You shall be holy because I am holy. It is one of the cornerstones of our obligations as Jews. That is why I have said that “good” is the divine paradigm to which mankind should aspire.

We can never know all the ways in which God may have brought about the defeat of Hitler and Nazism. Did God have a hand in Hitler’s inexplicable strategic error in advancing against Russia to the east rather than against England to the west when England was on her knees? Did He have a hand in ensuring that the USA did not maintain an isolationist policy but finally joined in the Allied military campaign which otherwise might not have prevailed?

It really doesn’t matter that we cannot be certain about precisely what measures God took to save the Jews during the Holocaust. We have all the proof we need. We have the strongest possible circumstantial case – 4,000 years of Jewish history! And even if that were not enough (and it certainly is), we can reflect on the miraculous fact that in barely 3 years, we, “the Jews”, moved from our darkest hour to the re-establishment of Jewish sovereignty in the modern State of Israel after 2,000 years.

No other nation on earth has survived so long let alone re-established its homeland. No other nation on earth has been persecuted so relentlessly yet seen off all their enemies. But then again, no other nation on earth received the divine promise that they would always endure.

It is fitting to conclude with the timeless question posed by Mark Twain in 1899: “The Egyptian, the Babylonian and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away; the Greek and the Roman followed and made a vast noise and they are gone; other people have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew; all other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?”

In my eyes, that question is rhetorical because it suggests its own, obvious, answer, namely that our survival is due to the brit olam, to God’s eternal promise that Am Bnei Yisrael will always endure. And God kept that promise, yet again, when he saved the Jews during the Holocaust.

Geoffrey Bloch is a Melbourne based barrister.

For the podcast of the original debate, including Mark Baker‘s delivery for the negative, click here.

Ambassador Michael Witter, left, with Manny Waks

The Capital Jewish Forum (CJF), based in Canberra, has recently launched a new initiative, where distinguished guests are interviewed on a range of issues which are relevant and of interest to Jewish academic, policy, business and other professionals.

First to be interviewed is the German Ambassador to Australia, His Excellency Michael Witter.  The interview, conducted by Manny Waks, covers the topics of Israel, the Holocaust, Iran, tolerance, as well as some questions of general interest.

Israel

Capital Jewish Forum (CJF): Germany is often regarded as Israel’s closest European ally. Would you agree with this observation and if so, why do you believe this to be the case?

Ambassador Michael Witter (MW): Germany and Israel enjoy close and friendly bilateral relations. Only recently, the cabinets of both countries have met in Jerusalem to hold their third official governmental consultations. We’re talking about a degree of direct government interaction that in Germany is only matched by few key partners. But cooperation is not limited to the governmental sphere: GER-ISR relations are also special due to a very tight network of civil society contacts. Israel and Germany are aligned in their remembrance of the Shoa in a unique way. As a consequence of our painful past, Germany has a strong interest in the security of Israel. This remains a matter of heart to us.

CJF: As a close ally to Israel, would the German Government consider taking a more active role in the Middle East peace process, independently of the European Union and/or the Quartet?

MW: In the framework of the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy, Germany is playing a very active role in all issues related to the Middle East peace process. It contributes strongly to the work of the Middle East Quartet which most recently met in Munich on February 05. Beyond that, Germany enjoys strong bilateral ties with Israel as well as with its Arab neighbours and with the Palestinian Authority, and much of our bilateral engagement in the region is linked directly or indirectly to furthering efforts towards achieving a lasting settlement to the conflict.

CJF: Germany has been heavily involved in the negotiations with both Hezbollah and Hamas with regards to Israeli soldiers missing in action – most recently in relation to kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit. Why has the German Government gotten so involved in this issue and does it expect to see a resolution some time soon?

MW: In this humanitarian issue Germany stands ready to offer its good services aiming to find a solution to this problem and help to ease tensions related to it. At the occasion of his visit to the Gaza strip on November 8 last year, Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle publicly demanded the release of Gilad Shalit and met his family.  Germany will remain committed.

CJF: With two prominent Islamist entities on Israel’s border, namely Hezbollah and Hamas, whose goal is to destroy the State of Israel, and an array of other Muslim states who are also dedicated to this goal, is a durable peace in the Middle East ever likely to be achieved?

MW: A durable peace in the Middle East is not only in the interest of both Israelis and Palestinians. It is also in the interest of the whole region and beyond. A two-state solution is without alternative. Germany remains committed to a solution as laid down in the road map: Security for Israel in recognised borders and the creation of an independent and sovereign Palestinian State. In the process of getting closer to a final settlement, all involved have to fulfill a number of obligations, and stopping incitement is certainly one of these. The Federal Government demands that all actors in the Middle East refrain from violence and recognise Israel’s right to exist and the results of the peace process so far. This also applies to Hamas and remains the basis of every decision regarding this organisation.

CJF: What does the German Government think of the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign targeting Israel?

MW: The German government does not support such campaigns.

CJF: What are some of Germany’s strategic interests in relation to Israel?

MW: Peace and stability in the Middle East are in the best interest of Germany and Israel.

For decades it has been a German foreign policy priority to contribute to this goal around the world. With regard to the Middle East, we want to actively contribute to a situation where Israel is able to live in peace and security with all its neighbours. We are convinced that a two-state solution would represent a sustainable solution to the conflict and serve both sides. The people in Israel and Palestine deserve to live in peace and prosperity.

The Holocaust

CJF: Is forgiveness for the Holocaust necessary from the German perspective? Do you believe that broadly speaking the global Jewish community has forgiven Germany? If not, is there a period in time in which this could or should be achieved?

MW: Forgiveness is in my eyes a very personal thing. It can neither be asked for, nor can it be granted on behalf of someone else. I would not use the term in connection with whole communities or even nations. Reconciliation seems, if I may say so, maybe the more appropriate term in this context. And it is indeed a gift to us Germans that meanwhile many Holocaust survivors are ready for reconciliation. Apart from individual guilt, the crime of the Holocaust makes Germans feel horrified and ashamed and it should of course never be forgotten. On the other hand, there are now a great number of encouraging signs for reconciliation. Think last but not least of the newly flourishing life of Jewish communities in Germany.

CJF: How much do you estimate has the German Government contributed to the global Jewish community, including Israel, in financial terms (excluding trade with Israel) and how much of this is specifically for Holocaust-related reparations? Is there a financial cap the German Government has for this ongoing contribution?

MW: Since the end of World War II in 1945 the Federal Republic of Germany has paid compensation to victims of Nazi persecution of more than € 68 billion. By far most of this amount was paid to Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Exceptions would apply to compensation settlements for victims of pseudo-medical experiments and to the compensation paid to former forced labourers under the regime of the German foundation “Remembrance, Responsibility and Future”, of which the majority of recipients were former forced labourers from the Central and Eastern European countries.

More than € 27 billion went to Israel, of which € 1,53 billion to the Government of Israel under the Luxembourg Agreement of 1952. Almost € 20 billion have been paid to individual victims in Israel under the Federal Compensation Act (BEG). Under the same regime another € 26 billion were paid out to Jewish victims outside Israel.

Almost € 3 billion have been paid to the Jewish Claims Conference for the implementation of various programs financed by the German Government and implemented by the JCC, such as the Hardship Fund, the Article 2 Fund and the Eastern European Fund. There is no cap for continuing such payments. The payments of pensions to individual recipients under the BEG will continue as long as they live, in certain cases they continue to be paid to surviving spouses. The programs for the compensation of Jewish victims as agreed between the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany and the JCC will continue to be financed and implemented as long as there are Holocaust victims who qualify as beneficiaries of those programs.

CJF: In relation to recent reports that millions of dollars were stolen from the Claims Conference, which is essentially funded by German tax payers, is the German Government taking any measures in response to this major fraud?

MW: In November 2010 the public prosecutor’s office and the FBI in New York officially informed the public that 17 suspects had been indicted for a series of fraud cases committed against the Jewish Claims Conference (New York Office).

Obviously, the JCC and the German Government share an interest in recovering as large a part as possible of the sums fraudulently paid out to non-qualified claimants and to look into a reorganisation of the administration/management of the funds so as to avoid such fraud cases in the future. There is no question of terminating the programs concerned as agreed between the German Government and the JCC, as genuine Holocaust survivors should not suffer from such fraudulent practises by some unscrupulous persons.

Iran

CJF: What do you believe is the best approach in dealing with the Iranian nuclear threat and what steps is the German Government taking to address this?

MW: During the past years the German Government, along with its European and international partners (France and UK as well as the US, Russia and China, i.e. the so-called E3+3), has continued its intensive engagement to find a diplomatic resolution of the international community’s concerns regarding the exclusively peaceful character of Iran’s nuclear programme on the basis of successive Security Council Resolutions and Resolutions of the IAEA Board of Governors. The E3+3 builds on a dual approach: On the one hand, they have constantly underlined their willingness to engage in substantial talks with Iran on this issue to find a diplomatic solution. On the other hand, they are exerting pressure through the implementation of effective sanctions in order to bring Iran to the negotiating table since it refuses to seriously address the issue.

CJF: How do you explain the dichotomy between Germany’s public support for sanctions against Iran and the recent record-breaking level of trade between Germany and Iran, including a 2.6% increase in exports and 75.5% in imports over the last year? Don’t you feel that this undermines the strict UN and even stricter EU sanctions against Iran?

MW: Germany is meticulously implementing the already existing sanctions and regimes. Beyond that, we actively discourage our business community from doing business with Iran. This has led to a downward trend in German-Iranian trade relations. The 2.6% rise of German exports to IRN for Jan-Nov 2010 is far below the overall increase of 19.2% in German exports for that period. Many German companies do not enter into any new business relations with Iran. The effect of the sanctions on the statistics will only be seen after a while. But Iran already feels the effect now, because Iran can see that investors are staying away, that important infrastructure projects in the oil- and gas-industry are not going forward.

Tolerance

CJF: Why do you believe German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, declared recently that multiculturalism in Germany has “utterly failed” and what has been the impact of this declaration?

MW: Chancellor Merkel made that remark at the height of a controversial debate in the German public domain about the achievements and short-comings with regards to integration. It is not my job to second-guess comments made by the Chancellor. Having said that, one needs to differentiate between “multiculturalism” as a descriptive term for a situation where people from diverse cultural backgrounds interact in a common societal space, and “multi-kulti”, which in the specific German context signifies an essentially ideological approach to the issue of immigration and which implies a large degree of “laissez-faire” when it comes to the integration efforts of migrants. My feeling is that today few people disagree that Germany first has neglected the issue for too long, and then maybe put too much stress on accepting large-scale migration as a fact of life without acknowledging that it can create tensions, too. Today, we’re seeing a more sober and balanced position, with integration perceived as a two-way street, where demands on migrants, e.g. with regards to language skills, are seen as legitimate and even necessary, but obligations on the host society to offer opportunities are likewise not ignored. German Government initiatives such as the German Islam Conference certainly reflect that more nuanced and dialogue-oriented approach.

CJF: With the rising level of antisemitism globally, especially in Europe (though perhaps less so in Germany itself), what measures is the German Government taking to combat antisemitism specifically and racism more broadly – especially given that there is a resurgence of the Far Right throughout Europe, including in Germany?

MW: The German Government as the vast majority of the German society is decidedly opposed to any form of racism or antisemitism. If you would like, this is one of the lessons we successfully drew from our recent past and this might also explain why so far there is no successful far right political party established in the German political spectrum. On the other hand, there are a whole number of mostly local prevention programs funded by both State and Federal governments to combat any form of racism or antisemitism.

General Interest

CJF: The German Jewish community seems to be thriving in contemporary Germany – its institutions, culture etc. Has the German Government taken an active role in this regard?

MW: As I have already pointed out earlier, indeed the German Jewish community is thriving in contemporary Germany and we are very happy for that. Jewish migration to Germany has started much earlier than a thousand years before and the Jewish contribution to German cultural and scientific achievements is tremendous. It has, therefore, been in the interest of the German government to help to restore Jewish life in Germany again. Just to name one example: It was chancellor Helmut Kohl who in the early nineties after the fall of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe provided possibilities for members of Jewish communities in the former Soviet empire to come and settle in Germany. Meanwhile, the first rabbis after many decades are ordained in Germany again.

CJF: What are the key areas of diplomatic cooperation between Australia and Germany, and what role does the Embassy play in all of this?

MW: Despite the geographic distance, bilateral relations between Germany and Australia are close and trusting.

Australia is aware of Germany’s importance as a leading nation within the European Union. Conversely, Australia is an important partner for Germany because of its growing influence in Southeast and East Asia and its support for peace, democracy, respect for human rights and good governance.

We are linked by a number of concrete political, economic, cultural and scientific cooperation projects to which both bilateral embassies contribute.

At the multilateral level, the excellent relationship between our countries is underscored not only by our cooperation within the G20 process and our endeavours to meet the challenges deriving from climate change, but also by our joint commitment in disarmament and non-proliferation policy. With regards to Afghanistan, Australia and Germany are both engaged within ISAF as in civil capacity building.

Economic and scientific relations are lively but could still be further intensified, although Germany ranks among Australia’s top ten trading partners already now.

Our relations have a long tradition and a strong people-to-people aspect. Tribute is regularly paid to the important role played by German immigrants in the late 19th century (Barossa Valley: wine growing) and after the Second World War (Snowy Mountains: hydroelectric power system). Visits by German tourists lead to numerous personal contacts. Particularly popular are the Working Holidays programme, which enables nearly 20,000 young Germans to visit and get to know Australia every year and the numerous school exchange programmes.

CJF: I note that Chancellor Merkel was recently awarded the Light Unto the Nations award by a prominent Jewish organisations, the American Jewish Committee, in recognition of her “outspoken support” of the Jewish people and Israel. What is the significance of this?

MW: Having received this prestigious award represents a high honour for our Head of Government. This equally counts for the honourable doctor degree of Tel Aviv’s Hebrew University she received earlier this month. Mrs Merkel recognises it as a sign of the high trust that is put unto Germany and its people. In her responsorial address she highlighted that the recent visit of our Federal President to Israel – where he was accompanied by his own daughter and a group of young people – should be seen as proof on how much effort the political leadership of Germany pays to keep responsibility and remembrance alive. She also stressed that human rights and basic dignity of man are disregarded at many places around the globe. So we still have a huge effort in front of us.

CJF: In relation to gender equality in Germany, what are some of the initiatives to ensure women’s equal participation in German society?

MW: One crucial aspect of gender equality is labour market participation. The German Government has implemented a series of initiatives to help women to better reconcile family and work duties. One was the introduction of a parental benefit, which was quite successful. Another aim of gender policy is to increase the percentage of women in management positions. The private sector has to do more in this context as politicians have repeatedly demanded with regard to Germany’s position in respective rankings.

Manny Waks is the Executive Director of the Capital Jewish Forum, which aims to promote discussion and engagement with intellectuals, dignitaries and leaders on topics which are relevant to Jewish academic, policy, business and other professionals. The Capital Jewish Forum has no political or ideological affiliation.

Transgenerational Holocaust Trauma: An Australian and Israeli Comparison

By Elisheva Massel

The impact of Holocaust trauma can be understood as being passed down as a family legacy, as a mission to be achieved. The term ʻtransgenerational traumaʼ is largely applied to situations where the second and third generations have no experience of the original trauma and no longer live in the area where the traumas occurred. Bonnie Burstow supports this definition of transgenerational trauma by explaining, ʻpeople subject to transgenerational trauma may not have directly experienced, witnessed, or even been confronted by traumatic events. Indeed, they may have experienced nothing but the particular ways their parents respond to the worldʼ.

The “third generation” refers to the grandchildren of Holocaust survivors and spans the age range of newborns to adults in their forties. The third generation is viewed throughout the literature as the generation that broke their grandparents’ silence. The majority of the third generation were brought up learning and acknowledging the Holocaust as one of the major events of modern Jewish history. They were exposed to countless movies and television shows about the Holocaust as well as the possibility of organised heritage tours to places like Poland and Germany. Eva Fogelman describes the above development and concludes that ‘the third generation was learning history, and imbibing a language in which to talk to their grandparents’. Dan Bar-On explains that the third generation normalised dialogue for their survivor grandparents, as it was easier for survivors to communicate with their grandchildren.

The Australian perspective on transgenerational trauma was ascertained through my Social Work Honours thesis. Seven participants, aged between twenty-one and thirty-nine and having at least one grandparent who survived the Holocaust were interviewed. The study found that the third generation manifested transgenerational Holocaust trauma across three main areas; (1) within the family experience, (2) in terms of Jewish identity, and (3) as a responsibility to humanity.  For the purpose of this journal, the second area will be elaborated on.

A major finding was in relation to identity, specifically Jewish identity and Holocaust identity. The participants identified very strongly with Judaism and processed the Holocaust as either separate or intertwined within their Jewish identity. In reflecting on the meaning of the Holocaust, all participants expressed that their Jewish identity was important to them. While none of the participants spoke about this in religious terms, they all identified with Jewish culture and family life.

Two of the participants were very specific in regard to Jewish identity, recognising dating and marrying within the Jewish faith and having a Jewish home as significant.  For one participant however, the concept of dating and marrying within the Jewish faith provoked a discussion with his brother and his friends. He relayed his experiences and opinions as follows:

‘My brother was basically saying, how could you date a non-Jewish girl, you’re the grandson of a Holocaust survivor, it’s disgusting and I [Jonathan] was saying, you shouldn’t just want to date Jewish people or even be proud of being Jewish just because your grandparents were in the Holocaust.’

This encounter highlights two important points regarding third generation psyche; (1) the inherent and underlying importance of Jewish continuity which was almost destroyed during the Holocaust and (2) that even within the same family, there can exist two opposing ideas in terms of third generation identity and understanding and therefore two separate outcomes of transgenerational trauma. The third generation are grappling with multiple components of their identity and trying to determine how their painful family histories fit into who they are today and how they perceive the world. It is this internal struggle within each of the participants which is a manifestation of transgenerational transmission of trauma.

The place that the Holocaust has in the psyche of Israel has influenced the way the third generation understands the Holocaust. In Israel, the Holocaust is not family or even community-specific as it is in Australia, but has relevance on national and societal levels. As a paradoxic consequence, for third generation Israelis the relevance of the Holocaust is in its impact on their personal and immediate family and not on their Jewish identity. One participant interviewed was born and grew up in Israel, only recently having moved to Australia. For him,

ʻThe Holocaust becomes a personal memory rather than a collective memory… With the Holocaust it’s much more focused on a personal thing.’

Rachel Lev-Wiesel interviewed Israeli families with Holocaust history and the grandchildren expressed high levels of empathy and identification with their grandparents’ suffering. They emphasized the importance of the family and each perceived life as fragile and temporary, and therefore something to be appreciated. There was also an expression of a common mission; to remember the Holocaust, never forget what happened, and to transmit this responsibility to future generations.

Dan Bar-On & Alexander Paul Hare surveyed eight secular public schools from across Israel. They found that the Israeli third generation utilized and mobilized the Holocaust to justify their specific political perspective whether it be ‘left’ or ‘right’ due to the polarized political situation.

“If one believes in compromising for peace with the Arabs (left political orientation, less authoritarian thinking, lower national identity), then the Holocaust serves as an example of how minorities should be taken care of especially by the Jews, the victims of the Holocaust. If one internalised the Arabs’ wish to annihilate Israel and reacted by a more right wing political orientation, higher authoritarian thinking, and a higher national identity, then the Holocaust serves as an example of why Israel should be strong and rely on nobody but its own military might.”

While there were some differences in how the Australian and Israeli third generation perceives the Holocaust, specifically in regard to components of identity, the crucial similarity is that the impact of the Holocaust on the third generation is one of ‘partial relevance’. This concurs with Julia Chaitin’s theory of relevance and the existing literature, which explains that for the third generation, the Holocaust would still bear some relevance but not as much nor as intensely as the second generation. This means that while the trauma is still transmitted, the symptoms are not as severe.

Elisheva was Federal Head of Chinuch as well as a madricha for shevet Adir in 2006 in Hineni Sydney.

This article is part of the Hineni journal, Partition, which was distributed in synagogues around Australia on the 63rd anniversary of the UN’s adoption of the Partition Plan for Palestine. We are publishing a selection of articles from the journal.

The following parties helped make the journal possible:

Frank Levy, JNF, Unger Catering, JMC Corporate Real Estate Consultants, Caulfield Hebrew Congregation, Hagshama Melbourne, Antique Silver Company, shaundesign.com, Danielle Blumberg (editing), Mervyn Chait (formatting)

The uniform of a gay inmate of a Nazi concentration camp

By Mark Baker

In the centre of Berlin not far from the Brandenburg gates there is a memorial to the Holocaust made up of thousands of slab tombstones. The group of students I am guiding through Europe on a study tour of the Holocaust disperse inside this abstract cemetery, lost in the labyrinthine structure of stones and questions.

One of the questions leads us to an adjacent park where a solitary tombstone has been erected. It wasn’t there the last time I visited Berlin, in which an invisible city of memory has rapidly sprung up, of plaques, signposts and stumbling blocks that ambush you at every corner with a personalised story of terror.

The isolated tombstone on the margins of Eisenmann’s Denkmal has a window slit built into its surface. It lures you to look into the stone, like a voyeur at a peep show. The image that is projected into the void of the stone is unexpected. It is of two young men, locked in a passionate kiss in the park where we ourselves stand.

I ask one of the students in our group to read the inscription near the tombstone. His voice quivers as he reads about the laws that prohibited same sex contact. A kiss between two men was a ticket to Auschwitz. In another time, this student would have had two triangles stitched onto his uniform, a pink and a yellow one, both core elements of his identity today.

The story of the persecution and gassing of gays in Auschwitz is part of the Holocaust. Yet where it differs is that the legislation that allowed for gays to be incarcerated was not a Nazi law but based on a criminal code that extend back a century. Paragraph 175, which forbad homosexual contact, survived the murder of about 15,000 gays in Auschwitz. It remained on the statue books of Germany and other European countries, including many states in Australia, for decades after the genocidal actions against homosexuals.

When I was a student at the University of Melbourne in the late 70s, my teacher John Foster, who published his memoir before his death, faced the class at the end of a lecture on the persecution of homosexuals and with stern eyes challenged us: Is the world of Auschwitz totally disconnected from our own world?

I thought of my teacher and also my student when I learned that our new Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, is opposed to legalising same sex marriage. My reaction is perhaps inflationary given my current journey in the footsteps of the Holocaust but I would like to take her to that marginalised tombstone and ask her to peer inside the stone and face the questions it asks of us.  Whether it is for electoral gain or a personal opinion, the message she is communicating to the Australian public says something about gays, their loves and their identities that carry on the remaining vestiges of Paragraph 175.

I would like to come away from this journey by teaching my students that to commemorate means to take the stones of our invisible cities and transfer them to our contemporary lives. Many of the monuments demonstrate the power of a single individual to redirect the seemingly inexorable path of history before it has been written.  For this reason, we must speak out on behalf of those growing number of people who are privileged to live in a time when they, and their relationships, are no longer prohibited, yet suspicions about the sanctity of their love persist .The questions must be asked not only of the state, but of our own faith systems – our churches, synagogues and mosques. In my own Jewish religion, a respected Orthodox gay rabbi, Steven Greenberg, has written about how the prohibitive texts in Leviticus should be understood against the grain of its own historical context in which gay behaviour was associated with pagan worship. Today, our sexualised culture of homo- and hetero- sexuality has pagan elements, but the act of love between two people is nothing more than love. It is not for us to legislate on how these commitments should be expressed. Our religions and states would honour those who were murdered in Auschwitz by thinking about the ruptures and continuities between the past and present, and how our thoughts continue to incarcerate gays in a world of our own prejudices. It is time to eradicate the legacy of Paragraph 175, and to narrow the space that separates that solitary tombstone from all the others.

Mark Baker is Director of the Australian Centre for Jewish Civilisation at Monash University.

Image source: www.coolstuffinc.com

By John Zeleznikow

For those holocaust survivors who were interred in concentration camps in occupied Nazi Europe between 1939 and 1945, life in post-war Melbourne was blissfully pleasant.  They had successfully escaped to what they perceived as the end of their world. For countless years, they tried to forget their experiences.  Many rarely discussed their tragedies with their family.

But for a small number of survivors, life after the Holocaust was anti-climatic. Those partisans, who had heroically fought the Nazis, now had to integrate into post-war society. Their reasons for resistance were no longer relevant.  And whilst some Jews were involved in armed conflict, fighting for a Jewish homeland in British Mandate Palestine, this was not the case in Australia.

I would like to introduce you to the experiences of Avram Zeleznikow, a survivor of the Vilno (Vilnius) Ghetto who was a member of the Jewish partisan group of Abba Kovner. Before the war, in Vilno, he had been a Bund activist and Yiddish teacher.

In the ghetto he was faced with many ethical dilemmas, including whether to cooperate or resist with the authorities; how to treat the Kapos (Jewish Police); and whether to give up their commander, Yitzhak Wittenberg.

When he escaped to the forest of Rudniki, there were daily dilemmas on whether to treat local residents like innocent bystanders or Nazi collaborators. These issues resonate today, when we deliberate how to classify individuals as resistance fighters or terrorists, and what is appropriate action.

In post-holocaust Melbourne, Abram Zeleznikow was initially a labourer who eventually ran a renowned restaurant, Café Scheherazade, and became a communal activist.

Professor John Zeleznikow is in the School of Management and Information Systems at Victoria University where he specialises in decision support for enhancing negotiation.  His negotiation support software won its heat of the ABC New Inventors program. His latest book, Information Technology for Enhanced Dispute Resolution was published by Cambridge University Press on June 1 2010.

Professor Zeleznikow will be speaking on “Life at the end of the world was an anti-climax – memories of sixty years of life of a Jewish partisan in Melbourne” at Limmud Oz on Monday June 14 at 5pm.

Why would a Jew Open the Investigation of Pope Pius XII?

By Gary Krupp

The answer to this question lies in a series of events that moved our foundation to decide to confront this controversial subject and break the 47 – year old academic “log jam”. Being knighted to a Pontifical knighthood by first Pope John Paul II and then raised in rank by Pope Benedict XVI enables me to have certain levels of trust and access that very few have. My wife and I decided that we should use these unusual honors to enhance relations between Jews and Catholics and so we formed Pave the Way Foundation (PTWF). We have now expanded our work to all religions by identifying non theological obstacles between the faiths and initiating historic gestures. These projects create a fertile environment in which to move the religious leaders to act to end the malevolent use of religion for private agendas. Pius XII started 4 years ago with a request for help.

Meredith, and I were having lunch with the Apostolic Nuncio to Israel, Archbishop Antonio Franco in 2006. The Nuncio asked if we could intercede to address a very disturbing problem. He said the Holocaust Memorial of Yad Vashem in Jerusalem had placed a very hurtful and historically incorrect placard of remarks next to its portrait of Pope Pius XII.

Honestly, I grew up hating Pius XII, believing him to be an anti-Semite and a Nazi collaborator. So my wife and I shrugged off this request and felt we did not want to get involved. But then providence intervened.

Upon our return to New York we received a phone call from our friend, Rabbi Joseph Potasnik. Joe asked if we would help a Jewish author and former Washington Post correspondent, Dan Kurzman, gain access in the Vatican for his research on a book he was writing on Pope Pius XII. I told him that the mission of PTWF is to remove obstacles between the faiths and that I did not want to involve us in any activity that would negatively impact Catholic-Jewish relations. He asked us to meet with Mr. Kurzman anyway and we agreed to at least hear what he had to say.

On April 7, 2006 we met with Dan. He told us that he was writing a book about the secret plot to kidnap Pope Pius XII, to kill the Curia and to seize the Vatican. I asked him how could it be possible that a collaborator and ally of Hitler, Pius XII, would be the target of such a plan. He explained that the exact opposite was true.

Dan said his information was based on his research and a long interview with SS General Karl Wolff who had served as Chief of Personal Staff to the Reichsführer-SS (Heinrich Himmler) and SS Liaison Officer to Hitler. He had interviewed General Karl Wolff just after his release from prison in 1974.

This information about Pius XII was stunning. We are talking about the person who has been called “Hitler’s Pope”. This is the person about whom so many damning books have been written regarding his silence and cold-hearted lack of concern with Jewish suffering during World War II. This was what we were taught. We hated to even hear his name.

Then I called an historian friend at Yad Vashem and was told “Well, we heard something about this Plot to kill Pius but it only shows that Pacelli (Pius) was simply too frightened to act.” Somehow, through twisted logic, this assumption further supported their firm belief that the Pope supported Hitler. Something was dreadfully wrong here.

I then received a telephone call from the Vatican’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Archbishop Celestino Migliore. He told me that he thought I should meet with Sister Margherita Marchione in New Jersey.

Meredith and I drove to Sister Margehrita’s community in Morristown, NJ. We met with this engaging then 82-year-old nun who has written over 10 books in defense of Pope Pius XII. Through this meeting, my eyes were opened to a reality that was literally shocking. My emotions went from shock to anger. We discovered that we have been deceived by those whom we trusted for historical accuracy – that is, the scholars and historians.

As we delved further into the history of this papacy and the secret works of Pacelli, examining real documents and recording eyewitness testimony, we came to the conclusion that this subject had been totally mishandled. How did this happen and who was to blame?

It started with the fictitious play by Rolf Hochhuth called The Deputy. Following that, a flurry of books were written supporting negative theories of this papacy and era. We later discovered absolute proof that this play and its impact was a well-crafted plan called “Seat Twelve” hatched and implemented by the KGB against the Catholic Church. When defenders came to reestablish the good name of Pacelli, literally no one read these books, and so this “black legend” has lasted since 1963 and to us it appeared that this was an “academic logjam” that would never be resolved.

The negativity was further fueled by one nagging question: Why won’t the Vatican open the archives of the war years and the papacy of Pope Pius XII? The reason is that the Archives just completed the cataloguing of Pope Pius XI in 2007 and the 16 million documents of Pius XII are not catalogued yet. Pope Benedict XVI has ordered the number of archivists cataloguing these documents to be increased from three to twenty to hasten the opening. The Vatican Archives will be opened the moment the cataloguing has been completed.

In 2007 Pope Benedict XVI ordered the early opening of the archives of Pope Pius XI. Why? Because the Vatican had finally completed the cataloging and now scholars and historians could come and study at least 65% of Pacelli’s life as Nuncio to Germany and as Secretary of State under Pius XI, his predecessor. To my shock, I learned that the critics and institutions had not bothered to come to these open archives.

As we moved our investigation further, Monsignor Robert Sarno, of the Congregation of the Causes of the Saints, suggested that I meet with Father Peter Gumpel, Relator (High Judge) to the Cause of Pius XII and Father Paolo Molinari, Postulator to the Cause. I had the most revealing first meeting with Fr. Peter. He recommended that I contact William Doino, Dimitri Cavalli, and Professor Ronald Rychlak for more help. After contacting these scholarly experts and learning of their extraordinary personal research, I personally became committed to righting this terrible wrong.

After almost two years of private research, I made a case to the Board of Directors at PTWF and was given the “ok” to take on this project.

Not all board members were happy with this decision, but they agreed with the project, since we are simply retrieving documents and testimonies that could only help the legitimate historians. We did this with the full knowledge that we were opening a beehive of resentment, anger and painfully proving that the long held beliefs of most Catholics and Jews were simply wrong. Yet we knew that, in the furtherance of the mission of PTWF, we had no choice. PTWF’s goal and mission is to move to eliminate obstacles between the faiths, and this obstacle impacts over one billion people.

After personally conducting video interviews (which can all be viewed with original documents on our website), we were convinced that we were 100% correct in our assessment of Pacelli’s secret actions to save more Jews than all of the world’s political and religious leaders of the period combined.  There are perhaps 3 million Jews who are alive today because of his secret but direct intervention.

Personally, as a Jew, I was determined to make this history right, especially considering how Eugenio Pacelli had been treated after his death by the very people he acted in so many ways to save. This we consider a Jewish responsibility, not an attempt to defend the Roman Catholic Church.

In Judaism, one of the most important obligations is that of charity. According to Maimonides, one of the highest levels of charity is “anonymous”, where the recipient never became aware of who helped him. In the case of Pacelli, his anonymous charity is the very tool his critics have used to strip him of any credit for the acts he ordered by so many nuncios and priests, who were actually following papal instructions through a verbal chain of command. Those critics allowed and encouraged every negative accusation against Pacelli to endure. This is a “Shonda,” a Jewish shame, which I am determined to correct.

Gary Krupp is a Papal Knight – the seventh Jew in history to receive this title.  Last month, Gary Krupp had an audience with Pope Benedict XVI in relation to the wartime record of Pius XII.

Holocaust survivors raise unique issues in the world of geriatrics

By Liz Paratz

The image of the Holocaust survivor who started afresh in the aftermath of the camps is familiar and powerful. We see it in films, in literature, and in our own families. The degree of transformation in these survivors – from dehumanization to success in a foreign country – is so compelling that it’s understandable why the media tend to focus in on such stories.

But that image of ‘the Holocaust survivor’ is beginning to change. As Holocaust survivors age, a number of unprecedented care issues arise. And, as Australia experiences the first waves of ‘the grey tsunami’, providing good care for Holocaust survivors raises unique issues within the world of geriatrics. Given that Australia is home to the second-largest per capita Holocaust survivor population in the world, we have an inescapable duty to recognize and work with these issues.

The worst-case scenario is often acknowledged to be the Holocaust survivor who develops dementia. For these people, dementia is a shocking blow. With 60 years between themselves and the Holocaust, a degree of distance and protection has been piled up, padded with human and material achievements.

But then memories of each achievement are steadily stripped away as the decades roll back. Inexorably, the survivor sees themself slipping back towards that horror-decade, the 1940s.

As they take the tumbling unstoppable journey they frequently revert to their mother-tongue, be it Yiddish, Polish or Russian. This rips apart their social support structure as children and grandchildren may now be unable to comfort them, and they cannot easily communicate their needs to medical staff.

But even for survivors who don’t develop dementia, there are still plenty of problems.

Doctors have identified an increase in post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms in Holocaust survivors as they age. This rise has been partially attributed to retirement and increased isolation, providing more time for reflection. Additionally, loss of independence may play a role. Much of the survivor population’s fear and anxiety about ageing is considered to be largely linked to Holocaust experiences.

For example, given that in the camps any sign of weakness could mean death, it is understandable that survivors experience out-of-proportion anxiety around issues like deafness and walking problems.

For these survivors, normal ageing processes like illness, frailty, dependency, and isolation provide cues to past trauma. Events such as the deaths of close friends, and awareness that one’s own death is approaching may further sharpen the grief, fear and mourning.

Some researchers declare that, ‘in the eyes of some survivors, Auschwitz was like a medical operation and the killing program was led by doctors, from beginning to end.’  But this version of ‘medicine’ as seen in the camps, and remembered by the survivors, was distorted and nightmarish.

Hence today ‘hospitalization…frequently brings about delusions of being in camp again. Survivors are once again confined and must submit to the humiliation of being helpless and being told what to do “for their own good”’. Other identified stressors associated with hospitalization or moving to a nursing home are ‘absence of family members; absence of personal belongings; lack of privacy; and invasion of one’s body by medical examinations and procedures’.

Unfortunately, as the survivors age, the number of diseases from which they suffer increases – and therefore so does their need for hospitalization.

Sometimes their co-morbidities are medical complications of the Holocaust. For example, young girls who survived the Holocaust now, as elderly women, have much higher rates of osteoporosis due to severe starvation at a critical time for bone development. Long-term alterations in the levels of stress hormones have also been tied to an increased risk of cardiac disease in survivors.

In other cases the Holocaust history may not be responsible for the disease process, yet can still affect prognosis. Survivor patients with cancer cope worse with their disease, and survivors with chronic pain suffer higher pain intensity and rates of depression.

Exposure to the medical environment may re-awaken terrible memories. The traumatic cues linked to the pseudo-scientific institutionalized nature of the camps may cause survivors to present as ‘difficult patients’ when in a hospital or nursing-home.

For example, receiving injections may trigger fears of being lethally injected with phenol.  Being taken by a nurse to shower may provoke extreme anxiety about lack of control, and flash-backs to what ‘being taken to shower’ meant in the camps. Losing weight as part of a generalized disease process or due to swallowing problems may also create great fear, as survivors fear they are starving to death like friends and family did in the war.

This fear of the medical system may have unfortunate consequences. A study in the Medical Journal of Australia* found that the Metropolitan Ambulance Service consistently recorded an inappropriately low number of call-outs by Holocaust survivors with chest pain during the 1990s. This was theorized to be due to survivors’ fear of calling a uniformed external agency who would take the patient away. For too many, this cut too close to suffocated memories of deportations.

In that specific case, the solution was the creation of Hatzolah, a Jewish first-responder service. This is practically a perfect example of creatively and sensitively meeting the unique needs of Holocaust survivors.

Other ways to soften survivors’ experience of ageing and medical interventions include providing Yiddish/ Russian/ Polish interpreters, maintaining a familiar environment and staff insofar as possible, providing medications in oral rather than intravenous or parenteral form and, if possible, even trying to avoid placing cannulae (drips).

Providing baths rather than showers, and organizing regular nutritional counselling around supporting the patient’s weight are further measures reported to significantly boost patients’ sense of autonomy and wellbeing.

Most of these successful medical interventions are simple and relatively inexpensive. From the community side, what can we do non-medically to deal with this phenomenon of ‘late effects of the Holocaust’ ?

Perhaps one of the best approaches we can take is recognizing, discussing and identifying all the complications, individual fears and stressors. With a better database of knowledge on this phenomenon, we can then more confidently explain to medical professionals the desirability of taking a full ‘Holocaust history’ in survivors, and the real need to develop sensitive and appropriate care plans.

* Chan T, Braitberg G et al, Hatzolah Emergency Medical Responder Service : To Save A Life, MJA 2007 ; 186 (12) ; 639-42

* Image from www.wacoisd.org

In the story of Purim, Haman is a clear descendant of Amalek and the ‘bad guy’. The mission conducted by Esther and Mordechai to expose Haman and save the Jews is completely successful and ultimately Haman and his ten sons are hung from the gallows that was intended for the Jews.

As one rabbi has put it, ‘the Book of Esther immortalizes the dream of the Exiled Jew, as it says in verse 9:1 ‘and it shall be turned to the contrary, so that the Jews shall conquer their enemies’.

So the story of Purim in this sense might be understood as a model for Jewish communities to aspire to in the Diaspora when confronted with anti-Semitism and genocidal tyrants. It’s an inspiring story where a brave Jewish girl confronts evil and saves the entire Jewish people without a single life being lost. And then the bad guy gets hung with his sons. As a Jewish revenge fantasy, it pre-dated Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds by a long way.

Many people today draw parallels between the Shoah and the story of Purim. Within this context, Haman and Hitler share not only a philosophy but even somewhat similar names. Furthermore, in the Nuremberg Trials 10 men were hanged, reminiscent of the hanging of Haman’s ten sons.

Even the fact they were all hanged on a simple wooden gallows is surprising, given that most executions in the 20^th century tended to be a somewhat more modern matter of death by firing squad. However, even this detail echoed the executions of Purim.

Not only that, but the parallels become even more apparent when it is considered that in both cases there was an 11^th person scheduled to be hanged (Haman’s daughter and Hermann Goering) who committed suicide right beforehand.

And then, to take things well over into the zone of eerie, it was documented in newspapers around the world that the last words of Julius Streicher, editor of the violently anti-Semitic newspaper Der Sturmer, were ‘Purim Fest 1946’.

But unfortunately, as we all know, there is a major difference between Purim and the Shoah. While Esther’s acts saved all the Jews of Shushan, 6 million Jews perished in the Shoah.

Which is what brings us to the success of movies like Inglourious Basterds.

Does this movie cynically exploit our ‘Dream of the Exiled Jew, where the Jews conquer their enemies’? If we look closely, it seems that the movie deliberately reframes the tragedy of the Shoah as a Purim story.

Shoshana is clearly Esther. Like Queen Esther she masks her Jewish identity, posing as Emmanuelle Mimieux. She is chosen on account of her beauty to be the mistress (or ‘queen’) of Frederick Zoller, a young German military hero who is rather apolitical and neutral – in other words, an Ahashverosh figure.

However, he hangs out with some serious Amalekites – his boss Colonel Landa is known as ‘the Jew Hunter’, counts himself as a key architect of wiping out the Jews, and is bringing Hitler and other top Nazi officials to France for a night to celebrate their victories in WWII and their genocidal plans.

But brave Shoshana devises a plot, disguising herself as a French collaborator and turning the tables on the Nazis. At the last moment, the plot is reversed, and Hitler is trapped in a burning theatre where Shoshana reveals on a giant screen that she is in fact a Jew.

The plot of Inglourious Basterds seems to be so blatantly like the story of Purim that it almost conjures up an image of Tarantino reading the megillah, then growling, ‘Purim, I’ll raise you. How about Purim plus Brad Pitt and some scalpings?’

Maybe it’s that type of insight that makes an acclaimed director… knowing when a story that has been told for generations and generations just isn’t quite enough. Tarantino would seem to think that it’s good, but it needs some updating and some Basterds….

Chag sameach.

Life is Beautiful - the award winning film by Roberto Benigni, a Shoah story that used elements of comedy - way back in 1997!

This article by Talia Katz is the second of a two-part series on new and sometimes controversial forms of Shoah commemoration.  Part 1 can be seen here.

There seems to be a distinctly anti-Generation-Y movement which undercuts the question of Shoah re-commemoration. For years there has been a stable, rigidly enforced method of interacting with the history of Holocaust, and an especially enforced standard of commemoration of that history. It involves extreme reverence, highly emotive triggers and a heaviness of the soul that most Jewish youth associate with any Holocaust-related public conversation.

Then, after upwards of 50 years of silent, sombre and most sincere reflection, young Jewish people have begun to do with the Holocaust what young Jewish people have done with Shabbat, Zionism and other sacred cows – they have turned it on its head.

That is not to say today’s young Jews don’t appreciate the gravity of the Holocaust. Rather, they over-appreciate it. They are saturated in understanding. Like the children of Holocaust survivors who were drowning in the silence of their parents, these third-generation Jews are likewise drowning in the over-exposure their parents are kindly facilitating.

Is visiting a death camp at sixteen an age-appropriate experience? Indeed, can one ask eleven year-olds to comprehend or relate to the number one million, let alone light a candle to remember one million children killed in the Shoah? How do you explain hatred for hatred’s sake, without condescending, or killing for ethnicity’s sake, without terrifying?

Would it surprise you that even our nightmares are Shoah related? I challenge any Jewish person to deny that they have had at least one Holocaust-themed dream. Mine involved abattoir-like slaughterhouses, with loved ones forced like cattle through the turnstiles, awaiting their death, with nothing to be done. And for a long time, there was nothing to be done but tread water in the overwhelming tide that threatened to overpower our connection to our history altogether.

As time separated the generations from the immediacy of the tragedy and threatened to disconnect them from its meaning, humour became the bridge that allowed Jews to take back the power and stubbornly refused to submit to the magnitude of victimhood. Suddenly there was a means to process this massive influence in our lives – a method to understand the madness. What started with the Ghetto reinterpretations of Hitler’s masterpiece Mein Krampf (My Cramp) and the naming of dogs and pigs ‘Adolf’, became an essential communal and individual coping mechanism for those traumatised by Nazi policies. Survivor and psychiatrist Viktor Frankl said in Man’s Search for Meaning:

“We knew that we had nothing to lose except our ridiculously naked lives. When the showers started to run, we all tried very hard to make fun, both about ourselves and about each other. After all, real water did flow from the sprays!”

Half a century later this tradition continues, to the chagrin and horror of the PC police and inflated egos that cannot understand that Heeb Magazine’s mockery of Holocaust memoirs stems from a moral disgust that the once noble premise of documenting history has become a moneymaking industry. Why not write your own Holocaust memoir? How better to destroy Hitler’s power than to belittle his memory and mock his self-righteousness character with a series of YouTube videos here, here and here? And here. And there. And here too.

People like Rosanne Barr hit the nail on the head: sure it’s sick and twisted to don a moustache and bake Burnt Jew Cookies in an oven, but how can we be so blinded by our pride and self-importance that we cannot see the irony and power of the inversion? When someone like Barr suggests such a photo shoot -a woman whose life has been dedicated to offending as many people as possible with her brand of take-no-prisoners humour – everything is fair game. As she herself told Heeb:

“He killed my whole family, it is true, but he is also dead, and I, a Jewish woman am still alive to make fun of him, and I will continue to make fun of the little runt for the rest of my life! He, and his ideas need to be laughed at even more these days, picked apart and analyzed up and down, as there are more and more people denying his crimes, and more and more despots trying to copy them.”

This peculiar cultural revenge is replicated again and again, from the infamous character actor Sacha Baron Cohen playing an anti-Semitic Kazakh in Borat, to the faux-terror of Seinfeld’s dreaded ’Soup Nazi’ - turning the stereotype on its head, and in so doing, fulfilling the hopes of the millions of victims encapsulated in the Talmudic verse: “The best revenge is to live”.

Call it revenge porn, but Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds could be the best antidote to the evils of the Nazi regime since Chaplin’s The Great Dictator. Tellingly, after the screening of Tarantino’s film, I bumped into a Jewish couple in their mid-sixties who could not fathom how such a film was even produced, let alone enjoyed – such was their disgust for the film’s subversion of the traditional power-relationship of the Shoah.

This tale of Jews reclaiming their honour and lives from the Nazi regime that had tried to destroy them was a “once upon a time” fable that reverberated in cinemas across the world.  It reformed those Shoah nightmares into Shoah fantasies, littered with scalps and bullets and relief. Far from offensive, Inglourious Basterds gave young Jews the chance to divert the course of their people’s tragic history, even for only a couple of hours, in a recliner seat in a cinema in Sydney or Toronto or London.

So let’s not misread young Jewish attempts to re-imagine, re-define and re-tell the story of the Holocaust as out-of-touch, inappropriate, disrespectful or ignorant. Perhaps it is time to step out of the stranglehold of ‘traditional’ Holocaust commemoration and recognise that the light of satire does not diminish any of the truth of history. Rather, allow it to light the way to a better understanding and clearer picture of what the Holocaust means for Jews today.

This article was originally published at Jewin’ the Fat.

Speaking of whack re-interpretations: In Jane Yolen's 1988 novel, 12-year-old Hannah is transported through time from present-day America to Auschwitz when she opens the door for Elijah at her family's pesach seder.

by Talia Katz

Part 1 of 2

My earliest memory of the ‘Holocaust’ is the living history project I was asked to create with the help of Olga, a kindly seventy year-old Polish woman.  I was eleven.  She told us her life story and we dutifully recorded it on cassette (yep! cassette tapes) and transcribed it all: the childhood sweetheart, lost in the deportations, the persecution, the daring escape from the horrors of death camps, the starvation, and the… -

Wait.  Hang on.  Wrong story. No, Olga’s story was about immigration, having children, moving to Australia and learning English… in the 1920s. In fact, with one exception, none of the ‘Holocaust Survivors’ we met lived in Nazi Occupied Europe during the war. I felt… in a word… cheated.  Here I was, aged eleven and ready for the shock, inspiration and awe that would come with the vividness of the stories of the Holocaust.  The legacy of my people. Except it wasn’t like the black and white Spielberg movie we watched before the projects began. At least not the story we recorded.

So began my Holocaust education. I came to understand that every experience of the Shoah was different. Some were daring, some devastating, but all decidedly unique.  At that age, it was all one sweeping movie set – complete with language, plot lines, backdrops and scores.  I couldn’t tell you what the ‘real’ Holocaust was like, because all I had was Anne Frank’s journal, Spielberg’s vision, Escape from Sobibor, Elie Wiesel, Number the Stars, Exodus and Mila 18.  My bookshelf was full but I was no closer to the truth.

It wasn’t until I had the opportunity to go to Poland and walk through the gates of Auschwitz and inside the synagogues of Krakow that I appreciated the magnitude of the Shoah.  I was so appreciative that I decided not to go.  I could not bring myself to walk the paths of millions, stand in the places where they died, observe where thousands slept and where many never woke in the morning.  And afterwards eat lunch next to a bus outside the gates, wearing scarves and jackets, complaining about the weather and the food?  It seemed a cruel but honest reminder that no amount of tears or diary entries could really bring my understanding to a point where I could make sense of it. So I stayed home and enjoyed the summer of a normal sixteen year-old, content in my ignorance for a few more years.

My peers returned from Europe, shell-shocked and overwhelmed by the journey and the history. They had been hit in the head with a reality that they never saw coming.  Some never really came back.

* * * * *

Ten years later I find myself in a world where the connection to this culture-changing event seems to have suddenly shifted momentously. There is a distinct sub-culture emerging, and it is well documented. Phrases like ‘transgenerational trauma’ are a fancy contemporary way to describe the emotional suffering of the generations descended from Holocaust survivors, or indeed any people where an entire generation suffered. It even extends to those with no familial connection to the trauma.

Within these families, where repression and silence have replaced honesty and communication, the strange and politically incorrect phenomenon of ‘Holocaust Humour’ emerges. From the sardonic humour of the ghettos to the suburbs where survivors live today*, the jokes take on a melancholy, twisted quality, where the only way to relate to the tragedy of the Shoah is to laugh about it.

Like laughing at a funeral, this easing of tension by the younger generations is just as likely to inspire a giggle as cause offence. Even Shakespeare knew about the power of jest and its cautious relationship with the truth.  Yet rather than laughing at the victim as with all great comedy, this kind of humour is about laughing with the victim, at the perpetrator.

This humour pokes fun at the ritual and infrastructure of the tragedy: the tattooed numbers, the ovens, the yellow stars.  It does so not because the suffering is funny, but because if we can’t laugh at ourselves, who can we laugh at?  Some think this post-Holocaust generation is too far removed from the horrors, mocks the tragedy too easily and is too quick to decontextualise then recontextualise the suffering. Such arguments say that re-imagining the Shoah destroys its integrity or stains its truth.

But isn’t the power of re-telling an integral part of the Jewish experience? We have a written law, and an oral interpretation of that law. We also have entire festivals dedicated to reminding our children: “They tried to kill us, we survived, let’s eat”. Chaggim [festivals] like Purim and Hannukah were also probably once sacred events, placed on a pedestal and bequeathed to the younger generations with their own version of “never again”.  Nowadays Purim is about alcohol, costume parties and making a hell of a noise during the reading of Megillat Esther.  Chanuka is about commemorating another one of God’s miracles, eating donuts, lighting candles and even putting the conservationist message out there.

Even the great biblical pilgrim festival of Pesach has been manipulated by postmodernity. Last year I attended a Pesach Seder where instead of the traditional phrase “Tell your children that we were slaves in Egypt, and the Lord our God took me out of the bond of slavery”, the Haggadah read, “Tell your children that we were persecuted, tortured, starved and killed in Europe, but now we are free.” And now we are.

So why does this phenomena scare us so much when it comes to Shoah?

* * * * *

* Australia is home to the largest per capita Holocaust survivor community, outside of Israel.

Part 2 will be published next week.

This article was originally published at Jewin’ the Fat.