22 Friday, August 24, 1984 THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS we've golcla LOOKING BACK Detroiter's painful return to past and classes... BY BENNO LEVI Special to The Jewish News FOUNDATIONS OF ZIONIST THOUGHT Thursday, 1:00-2:00 p.m. • Dr. Jonathan Fishbane THE WORLD OF FREUD Monday, 7:30-8:30 p.m. • Dr. Sidney Bolkosky JUDAISM IN. THE TIME OF JESUS Tuesday, 1:00-2:00 p.m. • Marvin Kasoff BEGINNER'S HEBREW Wednesday, 7:30-9:30 p.m. • N. Lev/A. Newman FROM GENERATION TO GENERATION: EXPLORING • YOUR FAMILY HISTORY Thursday, 10:00-11:00 a.m. • Betty Starkman For a complete listing - Please call for our schedule 352-7117 .or 354-1050 Classes begin September 6 . MIDRASHA 21550' 12 MI.RD. -21 12 mu itD Midrasha 11 AU AD COLLEGE OF --- JEWISH STUDIES 21550 W. Twelve Mile Rd. • Southfield, Mich. 48076 Located in the Sigmund and Sophie Rohlik Bldg. OPEN FOR BUSINESS Public Welcome I o Stop Buy and Meet Us! lim Prenilauer Sheila Weinbaum Marc Amhowitz Adair Ehrlich 10600 Galaxie Ferndale, MI 48220 399-9830 •INTERIOR DESIGN SERVICE • OFFICE SUPPLIES • JANITORIAL SUPPLIES • COMPUTER PAPER o RUBBER STAMPS z 2 • FURNITURE • PRINTING • CASH REGISTER SUPPLIES Since 1935, when I came those Germans who had al- to the United States at age most forgotten that once 11, I have been obsessed Alsfeld had a large Jewish With a yearning to return presence. And so I returned for a visit to the small, an- with Ruth' to what is ironi- cient Hessian town where cally one of the most beauti- my family had lived for gen- ful little towns in Europe, erations. Almost weekly for hardly touched by bombs or 49 years,-my dreams carried shells during the war. me back to Alsfeld evoking scenes of an idyllic child- My first encounter was hood. with a young official in a As I grew up in Detroit in small town where my the late 1930s and 1940s, grandmother was born. I and the horrors perpetrated tried to obtain some records in the name of Germany relaying to her origins. In were confirmed, my hatred the course of our conversa- for everything associated tions he expressed a frank ' with the land of my birth and genuine revulsion of intensified. Still, the yearn- the National Socialist reign ing to see Alsfeld again was and he seemd anxious to aid a constant reminder of my me in my quest. state of ambivalence. A second official, also In 1963, returning from born after the war, had a my first trip to Israel, I similar attitude. He had stopped in Frankfurt and undertaken a project of col- traveled north to Alsfeld, lecting all 'of the records re- where I was born. It was a lating to the Jewish com- quick visit and it satisfied munities in Alsfeld and the for a moment my deep small villages. in its vicin- yearning. I made very few ity. He maintained detailed contacts, but in the few in- records and was eager to stances when I spoke to supply to all who inquired people, I perceived, whether about the genealogy of their , justified or not, a sinister families. Before I checked into my involvement with the crimes committed in the hotel, I took a walk with name of the 'Fatherland. I Ruth through the streets of could even sense their ea- this pretty, little town. It gerness to bid me goodby so was an eerie and depressing as to end' the awkwardness experience. The houses, the streets, they were all basi- of our encounter. cally' as they had been so • And so it was that in long ago. I pointed out to my March of this year, when ' wife each house where a received an invitation to relative or close family attend a reunion of my pub- friend had lived. There had lic school class, I was stun- been so many and now — ned. I never expected to none. hear from them again, and now a very warm letter ex- At the actual reunion of pressingjoy that 'I was alive my class, I was greeted with and well. They had traced genuine warmth. The an- me through a cousin of mine ticipated awkwardness did who had visited Germany. not develop. There was no After much soul search- doubt about it, they were ing, I decided to return with glad to see me. I had skipped my wife, Ruth, to Germany. the reunion's opening ses- I also made plans to visit sion which was a wreath France and stay for a Shab- laying. ceremony at a bat week-end at a kosher soldier's monument in the hotel in Switzerland. I was cemetery in memory of actually embarrassed to say those students who had fal- that I was visiting Germany len in the war. Although it and thus I could say that my had no political signifi- trip was to France and Swit- cance, I could not partici- zerland with a side trip to pate. They understood. Hessen. I also .had. to over- During my visit I was re- come the virulent protests united with Horst, my coming from some of the former neighbor and best members of my family who friend. His father who was couldn't comprehend my de- certainly no Nazi, had been sire to visit that cursed my , father's friend since land. I tried to rationalize to childhood. I remember how them and even to myself—I Horst had fought off the was going to visit the graves pressures to join the Hitler. of my relatives; I wanted to Jugend in 1933 and 1934. return to let my former During the war he had been: 'schoolmates know that Hit- captured and spent some ler had not succeeded fully time in the U.S. as a POW. — we were still alive and •When he saw me again, he very Jewish. I even. hugged me. rationalized that my visit could serve as a reminder to Later in our conversation he told me how he had been captured by the Americans in Normandy. I asked him Benno Levi is senior vice , what he did in the service. president at St. Joseph's He, indicated that he had Hospital in Mount been an infrantryman in Clemens. the Waffen SS.' I was' dumbfounded when I heard the last phrase. My first im- pulse was to turn and leave. I took a deep breath and I heard myself ahriost scream at him "Horst, how could you!" He looked at me ap- prehensively and said, "Be- nno, we were only children — we were swept up in it, there was no other way." I heard him but could not comprehend. He assured me that he was never involved in actions against Jews. We were invited to a tea with sev'eral former schoolmates. I felt a consci- .entious effort being made to skirt the issue of war guilt. My hostess and many others I spoke to were eager to de- nounce war and those who would dare to light another conflagration. She was ex- tremely proud of her son who has spent some time in Poland and in Israel work- ing on an "atonement" proj- ect. She certainly had no prejudi6es against Jews and proudly indicated that her daughter-in4aw was part Jewish. I was not satisfied. They could not openly admit that the crimes perpetrated against the Jews in the name of the Fatherland must remain a blot on Germany's history forever. One of the other guests at the afternoon tea had brought two articles for me that had appeared in the local press commemorating "Krystal Nacht." They were dated Nov: 11, 1982. The first one described a silent march from the center of town to the site of the synagogue where a memo- rial 'plaque commemorated its destruction. . The second article on this page was entitled "They shouldn't have gone, shouldn't be dead." It stated that "when they cut with a dull knife out of our nation's body that half which was Jewish,. they left a deep wound that was never ban- daged nor has it ever healed." When I left Alsfeld, after the reunion , I felt confused and depressed. My purpose incoming, whatever it was, was not fully satisfied. I was pleased 'at the warmth and candor I found among my classmates and among the few neighbors I spoke with. Since the end of the war, Germany has tried hard to create a fresh image to, re- place that associated with the brutality of the Third Reich. But nothing' less than an annual national day of mourning and atonement for the evil per- petrated against the Jews will ever begin to erase the national shame that has t'atooed the mark of Cain upon the German nation. •