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Cover Story
SURVIVORS REACT TO
"You can't forgive somebody who did such
heinous things. Those born during or after
the war carry a certain amount of guilt
"I wouldn't buy a German car. It happens
sometimes that you buy something you
really need and you find out it's made in
Germany, but large items I wouldn't buy
"I only went back to Germany for the
dedication of a memorial, but I have no
interest in going back."
Marianne Wildstrom, Farmington
"Thirty years ago, so many Germans were
still alive who had their hands full of Jewish
blood. Perhaps the younger generation today
realizes that what happened was very bad.
"I've traveled to over 45 countries with my
wife, but I'll never take a tour of Germany"
Mike judikovic, Southfield
—
"I don't own anything German, and would-
n't consider it I can't forgive Germany as a
nation, but I can't hold a grudge against the
young people.
"I was in Germany two years ago with
my wife. She got a free trip because she was
born in Berlin. It bothered me a lot when
she started speaking German, it brought
back a lot of bad memories. The only rea-
son I went was because it was free."
jack Gun, West Bloomfield
"I was persecuted in Germany, and because
of Germany, 12 years of my precious youth
was robbed from me.
"I would not buy any German products. I
went back to the town where I was born, to
visit the graves of my parents and grandpar-
ents. I couldn't wait until I got out of there."
Martin Lowenberg, Southfield.
—
The children are not responsible for what
their parents did, then when I think of my
mother, how could I forgive I don't hate
them, but I certainly can't forgive them. I
would not go out of my way to blame the
children for their parents' past
"I've never bought a dish, and I even avoid
buying a Getman coffeernaker. I despise any
Holocaust survivor who buys a Mercedes to
show me that they have money Why should
I support them? The world is run by who
has what, and I was angry in Israel when I
saw all the Mercedes trucks and cars."
Erna Gorman, Bloomfield Hills
—
"The new generation is not guilty for the
sins that their grandfathers committed. I
am very angry about what they did to our
people, and I would never forgive them.
Never. But the children of Germany today
are absolutely not guilty."
— George Vine, West Bloomfield
After its conference there in March, a member of
the North American Boards of Rabbis told Chrobog
that he left for Germany with "dislike and disdain
for the Germans" but came back believing "it's time
to overcome painful prejudices.
"It shows there's a difference in thinking. One
rabbi, in a sermon, said he, for one, and his col-
leagues accept the hand that has been extended to
them in friendship," Chrobog said. "Our relation-
ship with Israel is even closer than with American
Jews, but we are building it."
ture. The Nazi thing just didn't come up. "
But the war years, specifically the life of Jews who
lived through them, seems to be comfortable ground
for a Jewish filmmaker.
For his last assignment in one of his classes, Dan Rose,
21, is making a silent film about an 8-year-old Jewish boy
growing up in a small town during 1942. The Holocaust
isn't the focus of the film, tentatively tided "Matzoh Ball
Soup," but Rose plans to use war footage of Nazis.
Survivor Generation
The detente is also an effect of the popularizing of
the Holocaust, which has bred a belief that no one
could possibly perpetrate such an atrocity again. It is
an effect of distance and time, and for some, expo-
sure to contemporary Germans.
It is also part of a natural evolution of feeling,
revealed in.scores of interviews last month with Jews
throughout the country.
Tova Katz, a thoughtful 12th-grader at
Maimonides High School in Brookline, Mass., for
example, said she cringes a bit, like Kelsey, when she
hears German spoken. But she's ready to move
beyond stereotypes of the goose-stepping Teuton
craving world domination.
"I have always been a student of history and I
think it is important to consider history from various
perspectives. Until a few years ago, I did think that
all Germans were bad, but as I get older, I realize that
you can't see people like that," she said. Her topic for
her final paper in her advanced placement history
course: the Luftwaffe, from the fliers' perspective.
She repeated a sentiment common among many
young Jews, that the generation born after the war in
Germany is guiltless.
"I can never forgive those who participated or sat
idly by," she said. "But we should all try to look
beyond it and not take it out on their children and
grandchildren."
It is hard to overstate the influence of the media,
particularly movies, in the persistence of Holocaust
memory in America. Oscar-winning films like
Schindler's List and Lift Is Beautiful replenish the
portrait of Nazi atrocities.
But that doesn't necessarily mean that the next
generation of filmmakers will take the same path.
After visiting relatives in Germany, Dan Shabtai's
perceptions of Germans as "rash," "abrupt" and
"cold" melted away against a backdrop of majestic
mountains and quaint hamlets.
"Now I see Germany as actually a beautiful coun-
try, with caring people, hard on the outside, but
quite nice," said Shabtai, a 22-year-old business stu-
dent at UCLA during a recent discussion with fellow
members of the Jewish Filmmakers Forum.
For Gabe Herst-Gianola, an 18-year-old film stu-
dent at UCLA, the present is more interesting than
the past. A few years ago, he worked at a camp with
a German, "and the whole Nazi-Holocaust thing
didn't even cross my mind. On the few occasions I
talked with him, I was more interested in the cul-
ture, the German scene right now. The popular cul-
Even some in the Holocaust generation may be
changing their mindsets.
As someone who lost all but one close relative in
the war, 81-year-old Ben Grenald of Miami Beach
would seem to have reason to hate. He doesn't, and
he guesses it's because of his great friendship with a
German doctor.
But some 17 years ago, Grenald found himself in
an emotional quandary when the doctor came into
his pharmacy and asked Grenald if his patients could
fill their prescriptions there. The doctor ran an insti-
tute that studied aging and the use of human placen-
tas to extend life. Grenald agreed, but only after he
did a thorough check of the doctor's background
and was satisfied he was OK.
A lifelong friendship between the two men and
their wives began that day. Grenald, a former vice
mayor of Miami Beach, and his wife, Selma, have
visited them in Germany and Switzerland over the
years. They have come to know and love other
Germans. They have shared joys and tragedies, such
as the death of the German couple's daughter. Earlier
this year, they joined the Grenalds at temple, where
the four of them opened the ark to remove the
Torahs. The doctor asked Grenald if he would give
him and his wife and daughter Hebrew names.
Grenald agreed.
"In my experience, I have found that when you get
to know people you're not afraid of them. Everybody's
different; everybody's the same," Grenald said.
As someone who lost his immediate family to the
Nazis and would have certainly perished had he not
been smuggled out of Germany, Fred Findling, 70,
also would seem to have reason to turn his back on
Germany forever.
But the Detroit attorney has been back a half-
dozen times, most recently a few years ago. He finds
Germans drab and regimented, believing they still
"miss the good old days when they had a strong
leader who told them what to do." And he won't for-
give them for taking his family from him.
But he knows he can't be yoked forever by prejudice.
"It's hard to say there are the same people there
now that were there in the '30s and '40s," he said.
"To brand a whole nation would be disingenuous."
Two generations away, Harlan Piper, a ninth-grade
student at the New Jewish High School in the Boston
suburb of Waltham, wants to look ahead, cautiously.
"The Nazis are gone," he said. "Just because in the
past they have done things, obviously they are not
doing them anymore."
"We need to move on," Piper said, "but we have to
remember and make sure it doesn't happen again." ❑
Related editorial: page 27
Debra Isaacs is a writer in Detroit.
Emotional Evolution