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•A‘14 ••••••, ":' Z•<,. ‘

4/28

2000

18

Remembering The Shoah

Personal Retribution

Austrians learn about the Shoah working at the Holocaust Memorial Center.

a

SHELLI LIEBMAN DORFMAN
Staff Writer

stresses the importance of interns
going "back to their own country to
serve as ambassadors, carrying with
them the opportunity to have lived in
the heart of a survivor community"
Now settled, the two spend their
days documenting videotapes recorded
by Holocaust survivors, soldiers who
liberated concentration camps and
other witnesses. Checking facts in his-
tory books, they also translate German
articles into English.
Rabbi Charles Rosenzveig, execu-
tive director and founder of the
Holocaust Memorial Center, said the
Austrians will become docents, lead-
ing visitors past signs marking the
70,000 Austrian Jews killed in their

rowing up in upper
Austria, German-speaking
Martin Doblhammer, a
Mennonite, and Daniel
Leithinger, a Catholic, never imagined
their experience with Holocaust histo-
ry would take them further than a
tour of the barracks of the
Mauthausen concentration camp,
located 30 kilometers from their
homes.
Now deeply involved in a volunteer
program that brings them to the
Holocaust Memorial Center in West
Bloomfield, they spend 40 hours a
week delving through tapes
and records in its library "I
have never seen such a
library. It is very moving,"
said Doblhammer.
Wanting to travel to the
United States, the two chose
the program of 14 months'
work as civil servants over an
alternative option to spending
eight months in the Austrian
- military as required by law.
The Austrians could have
fulfilled their duty in other
civil and social programs,
but Leithinger, 19, and
Doblhammer, 28, opted to
work as volunteers here.
Daniel Leithinger country during the
Their internships began Feb. 1.
and Martin
Holocaust. "Their par-
"We have a responsibility to
Doblhammer
ticipation at that level
cooperate," Leithinger said.
catalog videotapes as non Jews is a very
"Maybe it will improve relations
at the Holocaust
unusual first," he said.
between Jews and Austrians who
Memorial
Center. A German volunteer
have never been in contact with
who was part of a simi-
Jews before."
lar program worked in the center
The men traveled to the U.S.
library several years ago. "Many
through the Austrian Gedenkdienst
nights, he couldn't sleep," said Rabbi
(Commemorative service) program,
Rosenzveig. "Imagine the young man
founded in support of Holocaust-
thinking, 'My people did this.'"
related issues; interns work worldwide.
Doblhammer and Leithinger are
Interns receive partial financial sup-
the first from Austria to work at the
port from the Austrian government.
HMC. "Until four or five years ago,
Renting a Bloomfield Hills apartment
Austrian volunteers went to Israel,"
was one obstacle the two Austrians
the rabbi said. "Most Austrians were
faced. Without U.S. Social Security
part of the Nazi era and, therefore, it
numbers or driver's licenses, even get-
is a positive sign that young Austrians
ting a telephone took them weeks.
are here."
Doblhammer has an international
Rabbi Rosenzveig said those who
master's of tourism degree. Leithinger
have met the two men say they
studied engineering in high school.
"showed great sensitivity and under-
Bill Surkis, executive director of the
Montreal Holocaust Memorial Center, standing that they are grasping for

.

understanding of this unprecedented
tragedy." Doblhammer said his grand-
parents were not Austrian, but
Russian. Leithinger's grandfather was
part of what he calls the "normal
army," not the SS. Both said their
families are supportive of their work
at the HMC.
"My father read a lot of books
about the Holocaust," Leithinger said.
Gedenkdienst, which arranged for
the two to come here, asked them not
to comment on their country's poli-
tics, with regard to Austrian Freedom
Party leader Joerg Haider.
Haider, though denying being a
neo-Nazi, has publicly praised the
Nazi labor policy and stated that
Hitler's Waffen SS
deserves honor and
respect. Haider's father
was a member of Hitler's
1: Youth and the Nazi SA
_; o `) Storm Troops; his mother
was a member of the Nazi
' Party League of German
Girls.
In Rabbi Rosenzveig's
opinion, the Austrian vol-
unteers have "a sense of a
guilty feeling, with a
leader who made state-
ments not sympathetic of
the Holocaust. They are
very embarrassed by
Haider and very con-
cerned about whether their country
has turned its back on its Nazi past."
Rabbi Rosenzveig's hope is that
Doblhammer and Leithinger will
take the knowledge they gain here
back to their country, to influence
young people. "Older generations of
Austrians and_ Germans are hope-
less," the rabbi said.
The two volunteers say they wish
Americans would view Austria as they
do, with thoughts of university
research, music, the Alps and skiing.
Doblhammer called it "a nice country
with a terrible history."
But he added, "It is very important
to inform future generations as well as
people who didn't experience the
Holocaust themselves, so itwill never
happen again. In the early 1930s, you
couldn't believe it would ever happen.
"Information and education are the
most important part — more impor-
tant than the guilt." El

