Young Jewish Generation: "No one Should Remain Silent".

Kurier, January 27, 2023

German original: https://kurier.at/politik/ausland/junge-juedische-generation-niemand-soll-still-bleiben/400738344

Remembrance culture: How does the young Jewish generation deal with coming to terms with and commemorating the Holocaust?

by Sandra Lumetsberger

They are getting older, frailer and fewer: the survivors of the Holocaust. On Monday, 200 of them came to the commemoration ceremony at the concentration camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau, which Soviet soldiers liberated on January 27, 1945. The images, speeches of politicians are omnipresent on such days, usually accompanied by documentaries.

For Greta Zelener, all this triggers an oppressive feeling, her head starts to rattle: If she had lived back then, she would have been affected. What would she have done then? And why were others capable of such acts? Questions that occupy her on such days, until she manages to bring herself back to the present.

In it, the 30-year-old sits in a café in Berlin-Charlottenburg and talks about a slight surge of fear that she doesn't actually have to have. But the Holocaust still has an effect - to what extent depends very much on the respective family history - whether one belongs to those who were able to help liberate the camps as part of the Soviet army, for example, or whether one was interned in one. These perspectives shape one's self-image and are passed on. She knows from conversations that in many families there was silence, the trauma was too great. It was often only the grandchildren to whom the elders opened up.

Commitment to the culture of remembrance

Greta Zelener belongs to a young Jewish generation that speaks up, asks specific questions, and is committed to a culture of remembrance - in private or through research in films and books, but also wants to tell what being Jewish means today beyond that.

Discovering Jewishness

Yet she first had to learn this for herself. Her great-grandmother, who had once emigrated from Berlin to Ukraine, fled with her children to Uzbekistan, where she hid on a farm. She and two other siblings out of a total of eight survived. The other siblings or relatives, also living in Ukraine, stayed there and assumed that the Germans would not harm them - "they saw themselves as Germans, were culturally shaped there," Zelener says.

After World War II, her great-grandmother went back, but discarded anything religious she passed on: Yiddish songs or food. "Other than that, my parents hardly knew anything about Judaism." When they came to Berlin from Odessa in 1996, they sent their daughter to a Jewish school and left it open to her whether she wanted to live religiously or not. "I would often come home and tell them what we learned, such as about the holidays and what to do on Bat Mitzvah when their daughter is religiously of age at 12. I brought Judaism back to them that way. For my parents, it was like a gift, bringing back a piece of their identity," she says, laughing, adding that religion plays no role for her today.

"Meet a Jew"

She is currently writing her doctoral thesis on Jewish adult education, is involved in inter-religious dialogue, and visits schools ("Meet a Jew"). There, she tries to work out what she has in common with other religions, the diversity of Judaism, but has already had to do some basic educational work: she reports on students who were quite surprised to learn that she does not have a Jewish passport, but a German one.

When it comes to the culture of remembrance, there are also contentious debates in her generation. There are representatives who reject the attributions and impositions they experience as Jews - such as questions about the Holocaust, anti-Semitism or the Middle East conflict.

"But, then something like what happened in Halle happens".

Igor Matviyets, who studies political science and Russian studies in Halle, is familiar with such questions as "Where were your grandparents during World War II” or, “what, you don't celebrate Christmas?" He gets to hear them at university, when meeting new people, or at government offices. There, he says, for some he is the first Jew they have met so far. "As long as there's interest and curiosity behind it, it's not meant to be derogatory, I don't have a problem with it. Maybe people learn that they can ask some things differently. That's not how I celebrate Christmas, yet it's a holiday for me, too."

As much as these conversations annoy some people, which he can understand, it is clear to him that one often cannot avoid taking a stand. For example, after the far-right attack on a synagogue in Halle on October 9, 2019. The 28-year-old is not religious himself, but he felt the attack was one against himself and he wore a yarmulke the next day. "From history it shows that for the enemies of the Jews it is irrelevant whether you eat pork, are a policeman, a civil servant or in the armed forces, you remain, if it is comprehensible, a Jew."

What does Remembrance Day on January 27 mean to him? He says it is important that it exists, but at the same time he has the feeling that a ritualization is setting in: It's mostly speeches of the same kind, accompanied by a dedicated ensemble playing music - "all well and good," he says - but, "then something like what happened in Halle happens, and I wonder what the reminding and remembering actually does?"

More diversity instead of stereotypes

Moreover, stereotypes still circulate, which are also transported by the media. Most recently, he was annoyed by a history magazine published by Der Spiegel. On the cover: two Jews in traditional clothing from the 1920s with the title: "Jewish Life in Germany. The Unknown World Next Door." Matviyets: "Apart from serving clichés, it's just one of many variations on Jewish life," he says. "Enlightened Judaism has always been part of Germany." And just as then, there are many secular Jews today who live among non-Jewish people, work with them - after all, you can't tell by looking at people that they are Jewish. In Halle, he says, hardly anyone goes around with a kippah or a gown. Some might wear them under their hats. "That has nothing to do with a lack of feeling safe, it's just the way it is. Just like someone who wears a cross under his T-shirt or shirt rather than on the outside of his jacket," he says.

More education in schools

What Greta Zelener is particularly concerned about is that in a recent poll by the opinion research institute infratest dimap, 37 percent agreed with the statement that Germany should "draw a line" under dealing with the Nazi past. In 2018, the share of these respondents was 26 percent; in 2019, it was 33 percent. People with lower levels of education in particular were in favor.

Looking at this, she sees that there is still a lot of need in schools. There needs to be contact with Jews and visits to museums, which should be made more interactive. She is also convinced that everyone can do something. "No one should remain silent. It's up to all of us, no matter where, to address discrimination and anti-Semitism and intervene in extreme cases." She observes that some things are quickly shifted to politics. Of course, where it is needed, it must react with appropriate legislation. Anti-Semitic crimes must be punished in such a way that they act as a deterrent and make it clear that there are consequences.