Exodus, Revisited

by Deborah Feldman

  * * *

  • • •

  “Is this him?” Jan later asked skeptically, showing me a photograph of a soft-faced man smiling angelically against a background of timber roofs and spires. We had just learned that the neo-Nazi with the Auschwitz tattoo whom we had encountered in a swimming pool the week before was a member of parliament for the National Democratic Party, which was the deceptively innocent appellation for the Nazi party of postwar Germany; and Jan was trying to find out, by way of searching through the party list for the region, the name and identity of the man in question. There he certainly was in that photograph Jan was proffering, looking harmless, sweet even.

  I’d calmed down by then. We could almost joke about it. Pretty soon the photo was in all the newspapers, because there was another Berliner at the pool who must have felt as infuriated as I did, and he had the guts and presence of mind to take a photo and post it on Facebook, with the caption “Such people are allowed to move about unmolested in Oranienburg . . .” This photo came to the attention of several journalists, who proceeded to investigate. The story hit the headlines shortly after. Jan sent me the first link, in which it was reported that multiple members of the pool staff had been notified about the man’s presence but had chosen to actively ignore the issue until finally one of the managers had agreed to kick the man out. This happened shortly after I left the pool, apparently. I’m sure Zech enjoyed those five or six hours he spent there until then regardless.

  I found many other articles about Zech. First he was in all the German papers; then he made the international ones. It was discovered that the tattoo had been noticed before, at a lake outside Berlin last summer, and had been discussed on the radio. But no one had ever taken a photo of it. Now it was out there, in all its chilling ugliness, and could not be ignored. A few days later it was reported that the owner of the tattoo had been identified as member of the German parliament. Since the laws pertaining to privacy and personality rights in Germany don’t apply to individuals serving the public interest, the case was now considered worthy of TV news.

  I thought about something else then, about how ever since I’d arrived in Germany I’d been on the receiving end of the same message: that it was about time people like me got over the Nazis, because everyone else already had. Only four weeks ago, I had sat down to get a haircut, and my hairdresser, after ascertaining that my name was indeed Jewish as she’d suspected, asked me pushily if I didn’t agree with her that it was time Germany put away the Nazi conversation for good. “I don’t get this obsession with Hitler,” she said crankily as she ran a comb through my wet hair. “It’s gotten to the point where I’ll vomit if I see one more advertisement for a book or film about the Holocaust.” I don’t think she liked the total silence I offered her as a response. I remembered her now as I toyed with the idea of putting my thoughts down on paper. It isn’t Marcel Zech who is the problem, not really, but the people who want to pretend he doesn’t exist. The ones who would make themselves small for him and his ilk; they’ve shown me that Nazis still have a kind of real power here. People think twice before confronting one, afraid of the physical consequences, but they’re even inclined to refrain from expressing their opinion from a distance, because who can guarantee their safety? Evil still rules via terror, just like it did all those years ago, and the rest of us are still duly enslaved, even though it’s difficult to admit it. We retreat to our bubble and rant and rave, but in the end no one I know, and maybe not even I, will have the courage to show these people that they can’t get away with their message of murderous hate. Or would I? Would I simply remain silent in the background, because it was safer?

  * * *

  • • •

  Seeing that tattoo took my breath away. It shattered the illusion that I had begun living under, namely, that Germany was a country in which the majority of people condemn right-wing extremism and have wrestled with their past and learned from it. I was understandably relieved, then, to discover that an investigation had led to charges. I followed the news avidly. Others were pessimistic—they warned me that an Anzeige, a criminal charge, was not an indictment. Therefore it was a surprise when the indictment was indeed announced, along with an accelerated trial.

  Having witnessed this story from its beginning, I felt compelled to attend the trial proceedings. I asked a Jewish newspaper in Germany to provide me with press accreditation so that I could obtain a seat in the courtroom on December 22, exactly one month after Marcel had displayed his brauner Speck (brown bacon), as the headlines were calling it. On the morning of the trial, Jan walked me to the S-Bahn. “Try not to freak out,” he said. He knew about the dreams that had haunted me these past few weeks.

  As a child I had dreamed that recurring dream, the one where I was standing in line with my grandmother at Auschwitz. As we moved slowly toward the front, my fear would increase in proportion, as the moment of separation I knew was coming drew ever closer. When we finally reached the front of the queue, the faceless man waiting there invariably pointed my grandmother with a white-gloved hand to the right while directing me to the left, and I watched my grandmother disappear into her future while I remained paralyzed. It was clear she had been chosen to live, while I had been deemed unworthy. Each time, my death coincided with wakefulness, and I emerged into a dark night, sweaty and disoriented.

  If I had been in Auschwitz, I had always imagined, then I would not have survived. After all, I wasn’t strong; I wasn’t disciplined; I didn’t do well in moments of deprivation and humiliation. What my grandmother had in her, that iron fortitude I imagined, was not to be found in me. Therefore, even now, I thought, it must follow that I did not deserve life. I watched myself get sentenced to death in my dreams, and when I was awake, it seemed similarly inevitable that I would not survive whatever trials life might throw at me.

  They had told us in school that the Holocaust was part of a pattern of violence that had repeated itself throughout history and would do so again, like the unstoppable momentum of a wheel on a slope, gathering energy as it moved along. Not only would things not get better for us, but they would likely get worse.

  * * *

  • • •

  I waved off Jan’s concern, yet when I arrived at the courthouse in the small town of Oranienburg, the street was empty except for a tight circle of sketchy-looking characters out front. I recognized Zech’s profile immediately. He exchanged hugs and laughs with his neo-Nazi pals, all sporting similar chin beards and rat tails, tattoos creeping out of cuffs and collars. I had to walk around them to get into the courthouse, and suddenly my heart started pounding so hard it was almost like a drumbeat I could hear. My own fear disgusted me. I wanted to be cool, like the other press people already gathered in the courtroom, joking with their colleagues. I found a seat in the front row, next to a kindly older journalist from the Süddeutsche Zeitung.

  Zech was cheerful at his trial. He laughed; he leaned back in his comfy office chair; he draped an arm lazily around the chair next to him. He exchanged smiles with his many fans and friends in the courtroom. He understood, just like my friends had, that the trial would have no consequences for him. His lawyer was Wolfram Nahrath, another right-wing extremist descended from a long line of Nazis, eager to jump to the cause.

  The journalist seated next to me, having ascertained that I was American and unfamiliar with German court proceedings, explained that in his view, this trial wasn’t about Zech, but about showing the public how important it was to stand up to people like him. The proceedings had been accelerated at the cost of punishment, actually; the regular maximum was five years in prison, which was reduced to one year in a fast-tracked trial. But in the eyes of the state’s attorney, a quick reaction was more necessary and effective than a harsher punishment. This case was for show, the journalist explained, and pointed out how patient the judge was being with the press, giving the camera crews plenty of time to get their shots just right. After ten minutes of
flashes from all angles, the cameras left the room and the trial began.

  It started in a straightforward manner: Zech was asked to confirm his identity and personal information, the prosecution stated the charge, and the witness who had identified and documented the public tattoo display was called forward to deliver his testimony. Alexander M. was the only witness to show; others had been summoned, namely staff at the pool, but had failed to show up. So he delivered an understandably frustrated testimony, explaining that he had been scandalized by the failure of the public to react to the tattoo and had therefore felt obligated to at least document it and inform the staff. It took three tries, he explained, and then finally one staff member agreed to take care of it.

  The defense attorney entered a statement at this point saying that Zech had left of his own free will and that the witness had committed a punishable offense according to German law by photographing his client without permission and then publishing the photo. The state’s attorney nodded and laughed. “I know this law,” he responded sarcastically.

  “Do you deny that your client displayed his tattoo?” the judge inquired.

  “My client confirms that he was present on this day, wearing appropriate swimwear, and that the tattoo in police photographs was visible,” Zech’s lawyer responded.

  The judge wrapped up the introduction by reading from a list of Zech’s previous crimes—bodily assault, defamation, driving without a license, and impersonating a police officer. She detailed the list of fines he had received as punishment for those crimes. I knew some of the circumstances connected to those previous convictions, as I had done some research about Zech’s activities. I had read about the time he buried a swastika in front of Sachsenhausen concentration camp, and about the time when he tried to illegally obtain the identities of anti-fascist protestors, and about the time he tried to get ahold of addresses where refugees were being housed. Nahrath’s defense, when it was finally delivered, did not touch upon any of these details, however. Instead, the attorney seemed to relish the opportunity to promote his own cherished agenda; namely that of attacking the constitutionality of the laws surrounding incitement and Holocaust denial themselves. He essentially used the trial of a petty crime as a showcase for a much larger battle that the extreme right in Germany had been engaged in since the beginning of denazification. By the time he had finished his convoluted lecture, I was very nearly lost.

  A recess was then granted so that the prosecution could prepare its address. The burden was on the state’s attorney to prove that Zech’s tattoo was a punishable offense according to the law forbidding Volksverhetzung, or incitement of the people, a subcategory of which was clearly described as actions denoting the approval, denial, or minimization of National Socialism and the crimes that had occurred under its aegis. Although the defense attorney would have liked to imagine those laws themselves were being put on trial, they remained the context for these proceedings.

  I looked forward to the state’s attorney’s summation, but I was sorely disappointed. It was bombastic, it was emotional, it was full of dramatic pauses and theatrical turns of phrase. “You trampled on our constitution,” he admonished Zech. “You trampled on the efforts of those who strive to protect it.”

  The prosecutor continued by issuing an impassioned plea to the German public to condemn such provocations, for the benefit of the rows of press eagerly taking notes. “Not only the law should object, but the public as well. The public must not allow such a provocation to pass without consequence; it must condemn all such objectionable behavior.”

  * * *

  • • •

  When the judge finally handed down a decision after what felt like hours of posturing, it appeared to be a conclusion based on her own legal analysis and not necessarily a response to the arguments that had been heard. Six months’ suspended sentence, she announced, based on the charge of expressing approval of National Socialist actions and disturbing the public peace. No mention was made of Zech’s position as an elected representative in local parliament. The verdict meant that Zech would go free and continue living exactly as before; the sentence would only have to be served in the event that he should fail to cover up the tattoo in public during a future instance, as generally required of those sporting tattoos of verfassungswidrige, or unconstitutional, symbols. Both sides immediately announced their intention to appeal. Zech and his friends left immediately, as if they had been dismissed from the principal’s office for cutting class. The whole trial had felt like nothing so much as a hearing for the schoolyard bully.

  I watched the state’s attorney give preening interviews to a row of cameras and microphones. He surely knew he had delivered the sort of moralizing that makes for good press. Outside, Zech’s attorney refused to speak to the German press, having accused them during the trial of judging his client in the public sphere.

  “I’m not German,” I said to him. “I’m from the States.”

  “Sie sind Jüdin?” he asked.

  My heart started to pound again, my mouth went dry, and I felt as if I might accidentally swallow the ends of my words.

  “I was raised by an Auschwitz survivor,” I answered.

  “In the States, from where you come, this wouldn’t be punishable at all.”

  “But there are no Auschwitz tattoos where I come from,” I answered, before immediately wondering if that was true.

  * * *

  • • •

  The law is like a muscle, I thought on the way home. Without exercise, it atrophies, but with too much stress, it strains or tears completely. It needs exactly the right amount of resistance in order to grow strong. The muscle of this particular law had been built in response to trauma, and it had been shielded from exertion for so long that it could only tremble under the weight it was now being called to bear.

  I remember happening upon a book during one of my clandestine library visits as a child. At first I thought it was fiction, but close to the end, when the female adolescent protagonist was deported to a concentration camp called Bergen-Belsen, I remember slowly coming to the realization that this was probably a true story. I knew that place, I had heard of it before, because my grandmother had been there, in that mythical time that came “before.” Before America, before the Satmars, before me.

  On the day that I discovered Anne Frank, I realized that all the horrors and indignities I had just read about were real, and not only that, but that they had happened to someone I knew, someone I loved more than anyone else in the world. Probably because I was so young, I was unable to deal with this information.

  By the time I arrived home from the library, I was gulping down sobs. Naturally my grandmother came quickly from the kitchen to find out what was wrong. She followed me all the way to my room, convinced that she could fix it like she always did, with a hot chocolate and a soothing hand, only this time it was different.

  I opened the door to her eventually and confessed the truth. I had read a forbidden book, I had seen it and not been able to resist. The book told the story of the life she had lived before she became the bubby I knew, and now that I had this information I didn’t know how to keep on living, because the grief I felt was so huge it was certain to extinguish me. I wanted my grandmother to tell me something so that I could make it right in my head, so I could put the information in its proper place in my brain and continue to function normally, something I was sure she had told herself in order to resume her own life. But this time my grandmother did not offer soothing words. Instead she turned white and seemed to shrink away from me. Her silence was bigger than anything I had ever experienced; it was a ravine that opened in the space between us.

  I felt a bubble of pain in my upper chest just beneath my throat. She turned away, with that white, white face, and I knew, without her having said it, that we would never speak of this again. The pain in my throat left a scar that would hurt again and again over the years, for on t
hat day, though I didn’t know it at the time, I acquired my grandmother’s suffering as my own personal burden. I could not have known that it was a textbook case of transference that an entire generation had already endured; I only knew that because I loved this woman I had to take on the pain that she could not even acknowledge, and bear that burden for her.

  * * *

  • • •

  I loved my grandmother now more than ever, after I had experienced the physical loss of her presence, and my loyalty to her memory demanded that I keep alive the flame of her suffering in my own heart. How could I ever calm the hysterical child in me if I couldn’t convince her that she now lived in a world where Nazis were condemned and punished?

  For a long time after that trial, I felt worse. I thought I had betrayed the spirit of my grandmother, which was still in me; it was as if she writhed in agony inside me. At night I would awaken in a panic. I had failed her. I had failed to find her justice; I had failed to make it right. The degradation that she had experienced had been celebrated right in front of me, and I had to live with that fact. This was unbearable.

  Nearly a year passed, during which I tried to teach myself to live comfortably in a world I shared with people who celebrated my grandmother’s pain. I tried to understand how such a world had come to be. I told myself my suffering wasn’t making anything better, that the only way to find an equilibrium was to free myself from the burden I had been carrying so long. I needed to let it go.

  So with the help of loving friends and a city that inspires more often than it devastates, I slowly taught myself to still the beating of my heart every time I heard the ugly vocabulary of anti-Semitism. I breathed deeply when I found myself in line with Marcel Zech at the cashier of a Berlin bicycle shop. I told myself that my anguish was not improving the situation. I realized that the wisest reaction was complete and fearless calm; it was my insusceptibility that would serve as the ultimate justice.