Community Views
Editor's Notebook
The Last Train
To Seeshaupt , Bavaria
Nothing To Fear
Except Ourselves
SID BOLKOSKY SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS
Seeshaupt, Ba-
varia, a rural, bed-
room community
about a half hour
from Munich, lies
near the foot of the
Alps at the head of
a lake (thus its
name), an apparent
piece of heaven on
earth.
In the last week of April 1995,
the village hosted one of some 140
German commemorations of the
50th anniversary of the "libera-
tion" of the Jews. Seeshaupt had
no television cameras, no nation-
ally or internationally acclaimed
speakers as there were at near-
by Dachau, no government pres-
ence, only 200-300 citizens who
participated in a series of memo-
rial programs.
On April 30, some of the citizens
unveiled a mahnmal, a monu-
ment, made ofschrott, scrap, to ob-
serve the anniversary ofJews who
found their freedom in the village
and fields there, as they warily
emerged from trains abandoned
by German
guards.
Those respon-
sible for the mon-
ument took great
pains to distin-
guish the term
mahnmal from
the typical
denkmal. Both
words connote a
memorial, a ve-
hicle of remem-
brance, yet
denkmal implies
a "thought-pro-
voking monu-
ment," a
thinking back.
A mahnmal,
however, implies
a "warning monument," one which
stands as a reminder and a cau-
tionary admonition. That subtle
difference brought a sombre caveat
that may have been lacking or un-
derplayed in the other ceremonies
in Germany.
At the invitation of the citizens
of Seeshaupt, some 20 Holocaust
survivors, located by the U.S. Holo-
caust Memorial Museum, and
their spouses attended a week of
extraordinary events culminating
with the unveiling of the mahn-
mal. These survivors shared two
fundamental experiences: They
each had been prisoners at a forced
labor camp near Muehldorf, and
they had been "liberated" while on
those trains. About 3,000 prison-
ers, alive and dead, were shuttled
back and forth, locked in cattle
cars for days at the end of April
1945, stopping first at one station,
Sid Bolkosky is a professor of
history at University of
Michigan-Dearborn.
then another. Unwanted cargo,
stuecke (pieces), as the Reichsbahn
called them.
When the German guards de-
serted the trains, the prisoners
broke out and wandered the coun-
tryside looking for food, encoun-
tering German citizens on their
farms and in their villages. On
April 30, 1945, American tanks
appeared. Liberation.
Fifty years later, the 20 who
came with spouses were housed
with German families. They met
their hosts' children. Together with
those hosts, they ate, walked,
played, and talked incessantly. I
went as a friend of one of the sur-
vivors, as an observer. The am-
biance radiated Bavarian
gemuetlichkeit — homeyness,
warmth, hospitality — all sehr
gemuetlich.
My friend Alex and I stayed
with a doctor, his wife and four
children. We, like the other Jews
living in other households, talked
far into each night and much of
the days. We discussed responsi-
bility and guilt.
ELIZABETH APPLEBAUM ASSOCIATE EDITOR
controversy over the mahnmal.
Some villagers had argued (and
continued to insist) that a monu-
ment should be erected not to
Jews, but to German civilians and
soldiers who died; an anti-war
memorial, not specific to those
emaciated figures who roamed the
fields and villages scavenging for
food, frightening Germans. "Why
should the Jews get special treat-
ment here," one woman asked me
— a question not only insensitive,
but with an unfortunate choice of
phrase.
She, like others, described the
townspeople of Seeshaupt and the
majority of Germans in 1945 as
victims: first of Hitler and then
subjected to hardship as the Jews
were liberated.
One farmer, an opponent of the
mahnmal, insisted that after his
father refused them food, some of
the prisoners killed 12 cows from
his farm. There are no cows de-
picted in the mahnmal.
In 1944, in the forest on the
edge of Muehldorf, Jews had be-
gun to build an underground air-
plane factory.
Already emaci-
ated men fell
dead carrying
120-pound bags
of cement. They
never completed
the factory, but
part of the struc-
ture looms with
rusted iron rods
protruding from
the gray, jagged
concrete.
Different from
Dachau, now
sanitized as a
show-lager,
Muehldorf ap-
pears un-
changed in the
forest. The living victims of that
place recited a spontaneous, com-
munal, tearful Kaddish. Two peo-
ple could not control their weeping
and two German women comfort-
ed them, held them, offered solace
to Jews.
They welcomed us, their chil-
dren perfect and gracious; their
community bonded in good will
and sorrowful reconciliation. Late
at night, lights dimmed, fire in the
ceramic stove, the dog at our feet,
they became our friends. After the
unveiling, villagers and survivors
sat together drinking beer and eat-
ing fish or chicken (no cows) at a
communal dinner.
At one end of the room was a
Bavarian band in liederhosen and
Alpine costumes; at the other end,
a klezmer band. Germans danced
with Jews to both kinds of music
and the atmosphere seemed eu-
phoric.
Two hundred people gathered
to celebrate survivors — 200 Ger-
"The children of murderers are
children," Elie Wiesel told the Bun-
destag some years ago. If we
shared a similar sentiment with
our hosts, we may have lost the
context of Mr. Wiesel's powerful
and humane statement in which
memory and responsibility, con-
frontation with history and shame
become not obstacles to, but the
cornerstone of a new interaction.
Our host believed that See-
shaupt, the quiet village, knew
nothing of the Holocaust until the
doors to the train opened, reveal-
ing living skeletal humans amidst
the dead. That, of course, could not
have been true. Seeshaupt is only
a few kilometers from Muehldorf,
where Jews died of exhaustion,
starvation, violence and disease;
the train had stopped there 12 to
15 times as the station masters,
switchmen and passengers stood
on the platform of the station.
The good doctor freely spoke of
the Nazis who had lived in the
town, and, finally, of the 10-year LAST TRAIN nanp 10
I keep hearing a colonies. As a practicing capi-
lot ofJews ranti- talist, I'm not losing sleep over
ng and raving whether my children will become
about "the Chris- communists. And because my
tian right," and I husband and I do not abuse an-
have to say I'm imals, I'm not worried that my
mystified. Exact- offspring will grow up to torture
ly what, I need to cats for pleasure.
know, do I have
No, I do not expect my chil-
to fear?
dren to become everything I am
Any number of Jewish organi- and do everything I do. But I do
zations out there are writing let- expect them to maintain certain
ters (never failing to include that values and practices — to be
ubiquitous "and be sure to send Jewish, to be responsible Amer-
us a generous donation as we icans, to fight prejudice. And be-
work to fight such groups") and cause I expect it, and believe in
making phone calls and holding it so strongly, I practice it.
rallies to denounce "the Christ-
The truth of the matter is that
ian right," but I've yet to hear a virtually no one in "the Christ-
one explain exactly why I should ian right" is a crazed maniac out
be living in mortal dread.
to destroy everyone who does not
I have an idea, though, and it share his agenda. They are av-
has nothing to do with the the- erage Americans like you and
ology or programs of anyone me. They want their children to
from the dreaded "Christian have good lives. They want their
right," and everything to do with streets to be safe. They want to
ourselves.
have enough to eat and a warm
But first, understand that I'm home in the winter. They want
not naive. I recognize that there to see a movie now and then, and
are groups, some of whom oper- enjoy a cup of coffee.
ate under the guise of being
What I hear when I listen to
"good Christians," who directly Jews speak despairingly about
pose a danger to the Jewish com- "the Christian right" and its ef-
munity. I agree they are to be fect on the Jewish community is
feared, monitored and shunned. a group of individuals who have
I also have a problem with done a poor job educating their
some of the more mainstream own children about Judaism.
"Christian right" groups. I hard- They feel vulnerable because
ly agree with everything on their they have failed to teach their
political agenda, and I dislike sons and daughters both the
some of their tactics, like intim- beauty and responsibilities of Ju-
idating women outside abortion daism, and thus they worry —
clinics.
and rightly so — that another re-
And while I appreciate their ligion may seem appealing. Who
vocal support of Israel, I don't kid wouldn't find Christmas trees
myself that most of "the Chris- and Easter baskets exciting Tall
tian right" is friendly toward Is- he knew of Judaism was light-
rael because they're just wild ing candles on Chanukah and
about Jews. I am well aware of fasting on Yom Kippur?
the fact that their ultimate goal
Yet, oddly enough, instead of
is to see all the Jews converted holding themselves accountable,
to Christianity.
these complainers scream and
But there's one simple reason whine about "the Christian
I'm not losing sleep over "the right." It is, after all, a great deal
Christian right" having influence easier to blame someone else
over my family: Judaism is prac- rather than admit we made a
ticed in our home. Because of dreadful mistake.
that, I'm confident my children
"The Christian right" is going
and descendants will continue to be out there, well and thriv-
their faith and tradition, despite ing, for many years to come. We
pressure or proselytizing at- can continue to fear and hate it,
tempts from "the Christian or we can consider what it is that
right" or anyone else.
drives our concern.
Now it's inevitable there's go-
Is it really that this group is
ing to be at least one bonehead going to take over America and
out there ready to let me have it: limit the rights of everyone who
"Oh, just you wait! You're not im- isn't of the exact same religion?
mune to it! Nobody is! You peo- Will Jews be ousted from the
ple (always one of my very United States? Will Moslems be
favorite phrases) think you're not asked to convert to Christianity
threatened by this, but you are! or die? Will atheists be told to
You are'
come to church or suffer the
Of course, there is no guaran- consequences?
tee for anything in life. But I'm
I doubt it.
pretty certain that because we
What we're really saying
regularly wear clothes in my when we speak with anxiety
home, my children are not sus- about "the Christian right" is our
ceptible to brochures promoting own failing as Jews. We have
the wonderful world of nudist seen the enemy, and it is us. ❑