“Yes.”
Why?
“I have no answer.”
Don’t you really?
“No.”
Would you like to have an answer?
“I don’t know.”
Would you like to know?
“Maybe I don’t want to know.”
Why don’t you want to know?
“This is the problem, yes.”
And what is the solution?
Jürgen’s eyes get wet. He breaks. The confident man that I met only half an hour ago is now a broken man whose parts lay naked in the backyard of his house.
“I look into the mirror and I don’t want to see it.”
Why?
“It’s not a nice picture.”
Give me a better answer.
“It’s going to be me, staring at me from that mirror. And I don’t want to see it!”
Those people are you?
“Yes.”
Them?
“Yes.”
They are you?
“Yes.”
The Nazis.
“Yes.”
It’s hard to look at his face now, he looks like a criminal caught red-handed. His wife, Barbara, hugs me tight. Why is she hugging me? She should hug her husband! “Sorry,” she says, “sorry. Sorry for what we did to your people. Sorry.”
That’s Germany. Reporting from Dachau, the town.
As I leave Dachau, this “motto” refuses to leave my head: “There is a path to freedom. Its milestones are: obedience, honesty, cleanliness, sobriety, hard work, discipline, sacrifice, truthfulness, love of thy Fatherland.”
You really think, Rabbi Helmut Schmidt, that after twenty-five hundred years all this will be forgotten? It’s not just the killing of people, Rabbi Helmut. It’s the way it was done. Nobody, ever, will do a “better” job at murdering. Ever. Or as cynically.
Murderers, murderers everywhere,
Nor one murderer to see.
I need my Half and Half now, Giovanni di Lorenzo. We have things to discuss. But Giovanni is half a world away. He is in the north of our German planet, I am in the south.
•••
I opt, by practical necessity, to meet a Jew instead. Nine thousand in the Orthodox community of Munich, let me see one of them.
Jews, Jews, everywhere . . .
“Hard work” pays, and I get me a Jew: Jacques Cohen, of Cohen’s Jüdisches restaurant. The famous Jewish restaurant, established in 1960.
Is there Jewish life here? I ask him.
“Bar mitzvah, bat mitzvah, so people can show off how much money they have, and that’s about it.”
Who are the people who come to eat at your restaurant?
“The goyim.”
Why do they come here?
“They like Jewish food.”
And the Jews?
“They go to McDonald’s.”
Jacques tells me that he loves Henryk Broder, the German Jewish journalist. “He is a Jew with no fear or shame, a Jew who says what he thinks.” What makes him think of Henryk Broder eludes me. Jacques likes to spend time in his restaurant, pondering the big issues of life.
It’s hard to be a Jew, he says, nobody loves the Jew anywhere. Worse is to be a Jewess, he considers, because on top of carrying the burden of being hated she also has so much work. But the worst, he abruptly adds, is Austria: more anti-Semites there than anywhere else.
What does it mean to be a Jew?
“Nobody ever asked me this question.”
What is it?
“What do you mean ‘What is it’?”
What does it mean to be a Jew—
“Religion. The religion.”
Are you religious?
“No.”
Are you Jewish?
“Yes. I am proud to be a Jew.”
What is it?
“You break my head. I don’t know.”
Since most of his customers, he says, are not Jewish—though I don’t see anyone around, Jew or not, as this place is totally empty—he feels the need to introduce them to basic Jewish ideas and customs. On the tables of his restaurant are cards explaining Jewish law and custom. For example, what is ‘nonkosher wine.’ Nonkosher wine, according to the cards, is a wine made from rotten fruits.
Really, Jacques?
“Yes.”
I thought that nonkosher wine was wine that was touched by a non-Jew. That’s the real deal, isn’t it?
Well, Jacques is not so stupid to write stuff like that, no matter what kosher law says.
“I don’t have to write everything,” he muses.
Judaism, Munich-style.
Here’s another card. It’s a Combo Offer card. Go to the museum and eat Jewish food for a Special Price.
I don’t feel like eating anything now, and so I go to the museum.
•••
I am at the Neue Pinakothek. I don’t know what the name means, but the building looks cool. Not only that, but there’s also a special tour today. It’s called Traces of the Third Reich at the Pinakothek. The people here, I see, can’t get over that period. Should I join them? Hey, why not? I’m a tourist, and tourists do things like this. Tourists and a tour call for a lecture, at least in this country. The lecturer today is an artistic-looking woman who tells of the bombardment of this museum during World War II. I hope she forgives me, but after Dachau I don’t feel much sympathy. My fellow listeners, very fine Germans if one can judge by the way these people are dressed, don’t share my feeling and seem very moved indeed by the tragic bombardment story. Yes, it would probably be better if I felt like them, at least I wouldn’t be so bored now. I lose interest somewhere near the beginning of that Reich and get captivated instead by the paintings in front of me. Many Marys here, in case you’ve never been to this museum, one sexier than the other. If only the Jews knew how sexy they are—or were!
After the virgins come the warriors. Here’s a painting called The Entry of king Othon of Greece into Nauplia, by Peter von Hess, dated 1835. Amazing details. Each person in the crowd is captured in a unique mood, every person’s eye movement and bodily expression is gloriously detailed, and each of the ships, and every shape of stone and cloud, every instinct of animal and every detail of weather—all masterfully recorded.
And here’s The Park of an Italian Villa by Oswald Achenbach, circa 1860. It looks like a simple painting, but it’s bewitching. The shades and shadows the painter is playing with are just outstanding. You start looking at this painting and you become a prisoner of it.
Wait. Where is the Third Reich group?
Oh, here they are. Far from the Virgins and Warriors. They are in the private collection room of Reichsmarschall (Nazi Germany’s highest military rank) Hermann Göring’s. I join them and try to glean from the paintings a perspective into the man and his character. But then I realize, thanks to the guide here, that some of these paintings might actually have belonged to Jews. Too bad. I was just on the verge of creating an unbelievably genius theory that relates the connection between a man and his paintings, and this guide destroyed it all in one sentence!
Yes. As hard as it is to believe, Hermann was a little thief.
I leave the Nazis and the Jews and move on. Here is View of Arles by the poor Vincent van Gogh. He must have been in a good mood when he painted this one, using such lively colors and spirit. Not far from him is Claude Monet’s The Bridge at Argenteuil. There’s magic in it, especially his portrayal of the harshness of the industrial versus the softness of green grass.
I think I should become an Art Critic. For the life of me I can’t draw a straight line, not to mention a circle, but I’m so good at Criticism! Really. I’m serious!
I’m getting so lost in my thoughts and writing that I fail to see the guard next to me. I think he doesn’t like that I’m standing here and writing. Too many visitors stop to see my iPad. This creates unfair competition.
Where the
heck are my Third Reichers?! Maybe they are in the restroom.
I go there, just in case.
Now, here’s something interesting: instructions on how to wash your hands.
The leaders of this institution, and the government bureaucrats who finance it, have obviously concluded that Munich museumgoers are not well informed in the art of washing their hands after nature’s call. People need instructions. Yes. Every restroom here has them. For those who, for religious reasons, don’t read in restrooms, there’s a big instruction sheet next to the faucets. There are many steps involved, in case you didn’t know, when washing your hands. Put hands under running water, my dear, because otherwise the water won’t come to you. Hard to understand? Here’s an illustration of it. Yes, true. Under an image of running water, you have this instruction: Hold hands under running water. Image of soap, then: Rub your hands with soap for twenty to thirty seconds. Image of hands, then: Also between the fingers. Image of hands and running water, then: Then rinse thoroughly. Image of hands and a paper tissue, then: Carefully dry hands.
The city of Munich, or the state of Bavaria, is of the opinion that Munich residents are certified idiots.
•••
I want to find out on my own.
Next to the magnificent Theatinerkirche (Theatiner Church) there’s a little Biergarten. Here people come to drink beer, stare at the church, look at each other for hours on end, schmooze with no limit, or contemplate life while sipping this or that alcoholic beverage.
Werner is one of them, a handsome Bavarian man who sits and drinks his white wine all by himself. What is Werner thinking of all alone at this time of night? Love. What else! “Ten years ago I fell in love with a Jewish lady from America” who came to visit Munich. He showed her the town, they had a nice time, but nothing intimate happened. She went back. But when she got home, she found another woman in her bed. Her husband, that poor man, miscalculated when his wife would be back. But she didn’t, and she divorced him and invited Werner to join her in her lonely bed. What a beautiful life awaited Werner! The Jewish lady, what a surprise, was a very rich lady. Like all Jews. She lived on Park Avenue. Where else? And then one day she threw a party. And she invited her friends. Jewish friends, of course. Rich, if you doubted. And one of them, a Jewish beauty straight out of One Thousand and One Nights, in his description of her, invited Werner to an exclusive restaurant. Jews do that sometimes. Werner couldn’t refuse. You don’t refuse beautiful Jewesses. It’s not polite. And he got caught. How not! Those Jewish ladies, you’ve got to be careful. And that was the end of the romance.
Jewish ladies, Werner tells me, live on Park Avenue, and they are all irresistible.
Poor Werner. He could be living today on Park Avenue, with the rich Jewess, but instead he drinks wine by himself in Munich and schmoozes with a traveling male Jew.
“Old Jewish ladies,” Werner informs this Jewish traveler, “paint their faces and look like little dolls.”
Really?
“Yes.” And “they all work in diamonds.”
It’s good to leave New York and come here, where I get to know more about where I come from. You need perspective in life.
Why is it, I’m really curious to know, that so many German people talk to me about Jews? Is it written somewhere on my forehead, Speak about Jews Unto Me?
True: It is not only Germans who have “Jews” on their minds. There are others. Only a few hours ago, thousands of miles away, the US veteran White House reporter Helen Thomas resigned after controversial comments she’d made earlier went public. Jews “should get the hell out of Palestine” and “go home” to their real homelands, such as Poland and Germany.
I am in Germany. Maybe I should get a passport.
Look there, across the street in this my homeland, on the left side of the venerated church, somebody painted the Star of David. Graffiti, you can call it. I’ve seen many of them in Lodz, Poland, my other homeland. There, the Star of David means, “You are a Jew!” As in, “You are a thief, You are an animal.” And sometimes, next to the stars, you can find an “explanation”: “Send the Jews to crematoriums,” or “Juden Raus!” (Jews Out!)
What does the Star mean here? Werner’s painted faces?
•••
As the sun finally rises in the skies of Munich, I am in the English Garden. I sip my fresh coffee and listen to the trees. The wind is blowing softly. Vote nein says a poster not far from me. Vote No to a total ban on smoking!
Rauchen verboten (Smoking prohibited), said the order in Dachau.
Many children and many teenagers soon fill the Garden. More youngsters than trees. And bicyclists are all over. But they are nice, they are not like the ones in Hamburg. Here they are not militants, here they are nice humans. They live and let live.
I light up a cigarette, sip my coffee, stare at the beautiful youngsters showing off their young skins, until one of them approaches me.
“May I ask you a few questions?” he asks.
Yes, why not.
He tells me that he is a film student at the University of Munich, and since I struck him as a native Bavarian he would like to interview me for his documentary.
Me? Native Bavarian? How did he find out?
“The way you look, the way you sit, the way you sip your morning coffee.”
I started my journey as a Jordanian and now I am a Bavarian.
Not bad. Not bad. I am German! I’m so happy, I feel like getting up and screaming: Ich bin Deutschland!
His name is Jonas. He already made a film, and this is going to be his second one.
What was the first film about?
“Dachau.”
Oh God, not that again!
Why Dachau?
“I worked at the KZ for four years.”
You did. Why?
“It’s important.”
Is it?
“Yes.”
Why? Did your family have any connection to it, to Dachau?
He looks at me, as if I’ve spoken Chinese.
I guess there’s a reason why the Pinakothek museum instructs people in how to wash their hands. Munich people are a little, you know, slow, and they need some basic explanations! Yeah. I rephrase my question:
Do you know what your grandparents, for instance, did during the war? I mean, since you made a movie about the period and spent a few years at a concentration camp—?
Are you Jewish?
Now I’m offended. How can he call this native Bavarian “Jew”?!
Why would you think so?
“Because of the way you ask me the question.”
Damn that Pinakothek Museum! Munich folks aren’t that stupid after all!
Well, did you ask your grandparents?
“One time.”
One time?
“Yes, one time I asked my grandmother.”
One time you asked your grandma . . . what?
“I asked her who she voted for in 1933.”
And what did she say?
“She said—she didn’t answer, she asked a question. She said, ‘Who should I have voted for, the Communists?!’ ”
And?
“That was it.”
That was it?
“Yes.”
You didn’t ask any other questions?
“No. I was shocked. I couldn’t ask anything. I couldn’t.”
Yes, here’s how my morning goes. I prayed to have a Jew-free day. But no.
•••
Deeper inside the Garden a man sits drinking soda. His name is Dr. S. von Liebe, a surgeon. He is done with beer.
“Germany is rich,” he says, “but the politics here are bad. You can never tell who’s right and who’s wrong, who’s the truth teller and who’s the liar. Look at the ash cloud. Someone told us that we couldn’t have planes flying, no way. Then others said this is stupid, of course we can fly. How would I know who is honest and who lies? German political parties fight with e
ach other and you don’t have the tools to decide who’s right and who’s wrong.” That’s the problem with Germany. Other than that it’s good. America, on the other hand, is bad. “Big country, huge country, and it’s busy with ‘terror’ and ‘terrorists’ all the time. Like Hitler with his Jews. He blamed the Jews, America blames the ‘terrorists.’ They want to control their people.” He raises his voice, he’s pissed off. He takes a pretzel, bites into it hard, to get more energy. “Why is America doing this?”
I really have no idea what he wants from my life.
Why are you so pissed off at the Americans?
“The Americans refuse to force the Israelis into conceding land to the Palestinians.”
Did somebody put something in the doctor’s soda? What’s going on with him? Or better yet: What’s going on with this country? They’re more obsessed with Palestinians than Al Jazeera TV.
Why do you care about the Palestinians?
“Because I want peace in the world.”
Do you care about Chechnya?
“What?”
Chechnya.
“What?”
Chechnya. You know, Russia and stuff.
“Oh, yes! Chechnya.”
Do you care?
“Yes, I do. Certainly.”
But you don’t get emotional about Chechnya, obviously. Why not?
“Because, because the Middle East is more important!”
Why?
“Because that’s where the religion is. Because of the religion! That’s the basis of our—”
Are you religious?
“Me?”
Yes. You. Are you religious?
“Me? No!”
Dr. S. was born in 1945. What did his father do in the war? He doesn’t know. But one thing he knows for sure: He was not involved with the Nazis. How does he know? His father, he says, “was a womanizer and the only thing he cared about was women.”
There you go. Bullets were flying, people were dying, and the man was fucking. “Never in my life,” adds the doctor, “did I meet an anti-Semite in Germany. They are not here.”
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