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German Welcome

Local Jews reclaim German citizenship, mostly for the benefits.

Barbara Lewis I Contributing Writer

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1

For those who spend a lot of time in
Europe, a German passport can make life
a lot easier.
Richard Aaron, who teaches cello at the
University of Michigan and the Juilliard
School in New York, reclaimed the
German citizenship his mother, Marianne,
was forced to give up. His children, Noah,
18, and Sofie, 16, have also applied for
German citizenship.
Aaron travels frequently in Europe to
perform and teach, and a German pass-
port will make it much easier to travel
within the European Union.
Henri Bernard was
born in Germany, in the
small town of Beckingen
near the French border.
The family left Germany
in 1938, when Bernard
was 2 and his brother
was 4. They came to
Detroit because his
Henri Bernard
father had a sister living
here.
Wolf's father had lived in Gross-Zimmern
near Frankfort. He left Germany with his
first wife and two teenage sons in 1937 and
settled in New York, where he had a brother.
He married Wolf's mother, who had emigrat-
ed from Austria, after his first wife died.
Aaron's mother, Marianne, was 8 in
1938, when her family left Mannheim,
where her father was a cantor, shortly after
Kristallnacht. By then it was difficult for
Germans to get visas to enter the United
States. But Marianne Aaron's father been
born in Belgium, and that was the break the
family needed to get a visa.
Bernard said he was thinking of his
grandchildren when he decided to become a
German citizen.
Bernard, 78, of West Bloomfield, and his
wife, Annaruth, have four children and 11
grandchildren, who range in age from 23 to
11.
"Maybe eventually one of my grandchil-
dren will study in Europe because of what
I did:' he said.

Starting The Trail

A year ago, the Bernards traveled to
Madagascar with Wolf and his wife, Mandy

8 January 1 • 2015

Above: Henri Bernard, 2, arriving in the U.S. with his mother and brother, Helmut, 4.

Right: Isidor and Bertha Wolf in New York.

Garver. Bernard shared the latest issue of
the Forward with Wolf, who saw a notice
about reclaiming German citizenship.
When Bernard told him he had started
the process, Wolf decided to look into it,
too.
"I wasn't sure I would qualify," said
Wolf, 60, a retired Ford manager who
lives in Bloomfield Township. Wolf didn't
have any documents proving his father's
German citizenship or even his father's
birth certificate.
Wolf did a Web search for "reclaiming
German citizenship," found an application
form and sent it to the nearest German
consulate, in Chicago. Consul staff did all
the research for him. The Germans have
lists of everyone whose citizenship had
been revoked and confirmed that Wolf's
father was among them.
Aaron said much of the research for his
application was done by his older brother,
David, a rabbi who teaches at Hebrew
Union College in Cincinnati, who was the
first in the family to reclaim his citizen-
ship. Aaron's younger brother, Jonathan,
has not pursued German citizenship yet.
The German consulate told Wolf the
application process could take up to a
year, but less than a month later he was
told his application had been approved.
Bernard and Wolf went to Chicago

to complete the process at the German
consulate. Aaron and his children hope to
make the trip soon.
"I was treated like a VIP;' Wolf said.
"I met with a vice-consul in a private
office. She handed me the naturalization
papers:'
The vice-consul also gave him a
"Welcome to Germany" packet, which
included a booklet on "Germany for the
Jewish Traveler:'
The new Germans didn't have to take
any sort of oath of allegiance to Germany.
Both Bernard and Wolf said that would
have been a deal-breaker.
Wolf said he feels Germany is making a
real effort to atone for the Holocaust.
"I've met many young Germans, and
they all acknowledge their country's past
and want to make amends:' he said.
Aaron agreed, saying he feels at home
when he's in Germany. "It's a wonderful
country," he said.
His mother, who also lives in Ann
Arbor, said she has visited Germany
many times but sees no need to reclaim
her citizenship. She said she agreed with
a statement her brother once made: If
Jews don't go back to Germany, Hitler
will have won. Aaron said she has many
Israeli cousins, and all have reclaimed
their German citizenship.

As German citizens, they can also apply
for a German passport. Wolf and Aaron
did so; Bernard did not. A German pass-
port entitles holders to some discounts.
Anyone with a German passport
is required to use it when they enter
Germany. "The only disadvantage is that
if I get in trouble while I'm in Germany,
the U.S. government won't be able to help
me," said Wolf, because he'd be traveling
as a German, not as an American.
Bernard still has family in Germany.
One of his father's brothers was in the
Communist Underground during the war;
he escaped to France with his wife and
son.
Unable to move to the United States
because of his Communist affiliations, he
returned to Germany.
Bernard visited his German relatives
in the 1980s, but his parents never went
back.
Wolf spent one day in Germany during
a longer trip to Europe in the late 1970s.
Now that he's a citizen, he wants to plan
a longer visit. He says he may even study
German, which his parents spoke at
home when he was young.
His father would have never dreamed
of returning to Germany after he left,
Wolf said. "He never spoke of his experi-
ences in Germany or about leaving."

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