LAST TRAIN page 9

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man people.
Perhaps their genuine, sympa-
thetic weeping, solicitous senti-
ments and the shared intimacy
were grounded in misconceptions
and naive denial about Jews and
most certainly about the Holo-
caust. Despite our new friends'
convictions about the differences
between Nazis and other Ger-
mans, people did not have to be
Nazis to be a part of the Holocaust,
bystanders and/or perpetrators.
Ashamed of this past, someone
must accept the responsibility of
integrating it into the present in
order to inform the future. Did
they recognize how thick and tor-
tuous the subject of the Holocaust
emerged? That it could not be so
simply reduced to demon SS men
and innocent Jewish victims?
That it could not be repaired by
religious or pious feelings or by
compassion or sympathy?
Very complicated, this Holo-
caust business — from the term
itself to its twisting and contro-
versial history.
We heard nothing of the former
SS man in Munich who, as the
ceremonies in Seeshaupt pro-
ceeded, immolated himself
protesting other memorial ser-
vices; nor did we hear that in
Lubbeck a synagogue was burned.
Why did they do all this? What
did they want from us? Atonement
and forgiveness? Not possible. Rec-
onciliation and a more positive
view of the new, new Germans?
Will they remember this for the
remainder of their lives and pass
it on to their children?
A "Meditation zum Mahnmal"
by a local pastor concluded that "I
see in the mahnmal that life con-
quers death, joy conquers sorrow,
humanity conquers force, peace
conquers war, justice conquers in-
justice, love conquers hate." (At
the top of the monument, reads
the inscription "Yes to love, no to
hate.")
Moving, sentimental words,
perhaps, but untrue. In the end,
the question remains: What is the
warning of the mahnmal?
Muehldorf, the train of dead
and living, the remaining anti-
Semitism, the blindness to com-
plicity, do not testify to the victory
of life over death, or of justice over
injustice or of love over hate. They
testify to nothing. Bitter memo-
ries of the past will not be erased
so easily and ought not be dis-
cussed happily with such cama-
raderie.
The Germans, wrote Jane
Kramer in a recent New Yorker
article, "want to resolve a duty to
remember and a longing to forget."
Perhaps they share that, too, with
the survivors who returned.
Yet, Seeshaupt touched, near-
ly overwhelmed us and because of
that, more puzzling than what
they wanted from us, what do we
now want from them? Perhaps
Alex Ehrmann or David Kahan,
or other survivors of Muehldorf
and the train. can answer that

question. I have no coherent, ra-
tional response to it.
Like the possible answers to
other questions about the Holo-
caust, the answers to this one are
conflicting, contradictory, uncer-
tain. If this gathering, pristine in
its refusal to become part of the
media circus of liberation in Ger-
many, assumes the aura of a new
beginning, a first step, it should
be nurtured somehow; but where
will the next steps take these
new/old Germans?
Historians become heroes in
German culture, especially those
who try to "manage" this particu-
lar part of the past. Should we
travel that road with them? Is ed-
ucation the answer? Will Julika
and Katherina and Johanna and
Cluistolf learn more of the Holo-
caust in their local schools? Will it
matter? Should it matter?
While the Seeshaupt com-
memorations were not orches-
trated in Bonn or Berlin, they
seemed to reflect the quest for
what German writer Eike Geisel
has called a "German 'solution' to
the Final Solution." In that re-
spect, as an apparent aspect of a
national or at least a political agen-
da, this grass-roots undertaking
grows in importance. Each day
there I remembered the words of
American novelist Don DeLillo:
"When you think of things Ger-
man, in the end there is Hitler, of
course." ❑

LETTERS page 08

Farrakhan Dialogue:
A No Gainer

In your editorial of Oct. 20, you
suggest that Jewish groups
should engage in direct dialogue
with Louis Farrakhan. There is
nothing to be gained by such a
project. No one has ever changed
the mind of a rabid anti-Semite.
No one could have changed the
mind of Adolf Hitler or of Father
Coughlin or of the heads of
Hezbollah and Hamas.
There are, no doubt, many op-
portunities to talk with black
groups. I was one of a small group
of members of a major Jewish or-
ganization who entered into a di-
alogue with people of the black
community in 1967. There was
quite a lot of outspoken and some-
times acid confrontation, but
nothing resembled Farrakhan's
vitriolic oral assault.
A conversation with interme-
diaries may be possible but Jew-
ish organizations should not
commit time and limited re-
sources to direct dealings with
the leader of the Nation of Islam.

Kurt Singer
Southfield