If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be. . .
Tuesday was our visit to Dachau. Like our Poland Mission in 2009, our plans
included visiting a very difficult site and also davening shacharit there.
Dachau is, perhaps to the German consciousness, the
paradigm of what the horror of Nazism and its treatment of prisoners was. A sign on the way into the camp says “Dachau—the significance of this name will
never be erased from German history. It
stands for all concentration camps which the Nazis established in their
territory.” The quote is attributed to
Eugene Kogon, a Christian objector to the Nazis who spent several years as a
prisoner at Buchenwald, and the author of books about the Holocaust.
Dachau was established in 1933, and did serve as a model
for the concentration camp “system.’
43,000 people died of the over 200,000 who were incarcerated. Like other notorious incarceration and murder
centers, it has a gate emblazoned with the cruelly untrue motto Arbeit Macht Free—Work Makes One
Free.
Unlike Auschwitz/Birkenau (especially Birkenau), it was
not specifically intended as a death camp—and its prisoners were not, for the
most part, Jewish. (By the time that the
machinery of imprisonment and killing was fully operational, the Jews had, by
the plans established at Wannsee, been moved “to the east”—for convenient mass
slaughter outside the vision of Germany and most of its citizens).
What does it mean to gather at a place like this and
recite one’s daily prayers? To wear
Tallit and Tefillin? There is a certain
defiance in it—but a defiance that takes no risks. There is little triumph in it. Yet there is SOME—as we DID survive, and we
stand in the full witness and admission of the modern German nation.
Our program and shacharit
Our program and shacharit
Our program and shacharit
Our program and shacharit
Our assembly place—for davening and for programs
preceding and during the davening and for reassembling later before departing
this accursed place—was near to the Jewish memorial at Dachau. The ground isn’t paved. Our chairs and our stage (to see those
leading) were set up in what is a field of stones about the size of “silver
dollars” or slightly larger. Difficult
to walk on. Something poetic in THAT.
Colleagues Jen Cohen and Henry Rosenblum led a beautiful,
simple, appropriate davenen, and quite a few were involved in songs, poems, and
readings. These were designed by our
colleague Steve Stoehr, who was unfortunately unable to join us on the
Mission. He was much missed, but his
sense of how to recall the departed, and how to call ourselves to account for
their memories, was much present. People
who had a personal connection to Dachau were called forward to participate in a
special way. This included Alice Levitin
from our congregation in Columbus and a man from Houston who we met on the
tour. David Bell’s father-in-law was
among the liberators, and this clearly made a lifelong impression even on
DAVID.
Those with Dachau connections - including Alice Levitin - come forward to light memorial candles
The Jewish Memorial Site “remembers the murder of the
European Jews. Like a ramp, the path
leads into the interior of the structure.
A band of light marble points to an opening in the roof and carries the
sevenbranched candelabrum, the menorah.
The marble comes from Peki’in in Israel. . . and symbolizes the
continuity of Jewish life” The Jewish
Memorial Site was officially opened in May 1967. Stunning to think of the difference between
May 1967 and, say, July 1967. I wonder
what that felt like in Munich. . .
Jewish memorial at Dachau
Jewish memorial at Dachau
Jewish memorial at Dachau
Jewish memorial at Dachau
Many Jews feel peculiar (or significantly negative) about
the presence of OTHER religious shrines at concentration camps. This is different in different places, and
I’d have to say that it’s particularly appropriate to have these places at
Dachau—where Jews weren’t (as previously noted) the primary targets or victims.
Other religious memorials at Dachau
Other religious memorials at Dachau
Other religious memorials at Dachau
After our service, we visited further around the camp—including
the gas chambers and crematorium. If
Dachau is indeed the blueprint for Germans to understand the horror of the
Shoah, all the PIECES are present: the
barracks piling people upon each other (and one can see 3 versions of these,
increasing the overcrowding as the war wears on), the facilities designed for
mass killing and for mass disposal of the bodies.
Crematorium...if you've visited other concentration camps, you've seen this same design. Thousands of camps. Millions of victims.
Why they needed the crematoriums
Apparently, the gas chambers at Dachau were not much
used, and not used on a “mass killing basis.”
But their design, along with the signs making believe that they are
places to disinfect people, are creepy enough.
The crematoria WERE used plenty.
But the creepiest thing for me in this visit to this place was the indication
that executions—hangings—took place IN the crematoria—on the pipes directly in
front of the burning ovens.
Somehow this bothered me more than almost anything: they executed people--by hanging--directly in front of the crematoria.
From bad to worse to unimaginable -- sleeping quarters at Dachau
A Day at camp
Plus the same place today
US Army photo post-liberation. Note how much more robust these prisoners (from Dachau) appear than what yo have seen at the extermination camps in the east.
Two moments in the concluding program particularly stand
out in my mind. Colleague David Lipp
sang “Dachau Lied,” a defiant hymn
written by prisoners interned at Dachau.
And Simon Spiro’s recitation of the El Malei Rachamim – while I stood
by, holding the Cantors Assembly Torah, itself rescued from the Shoah—had the
full power of the moment.
Our concluding program at Dachau -- including holding the Torah for El Malei Rachamim
…………………….
After returning to the areas of our hotel for lunch, we
re-assembled and visited Munich’s Jewish Community Center, where we met
Charlotte Knobluch, a major benefactor and builder of Munich’s Jewish
community. Mrs. Knobluch was elected to
be the first woman President of the Society of German Jews in 2006. We had another presentation by Stephen Berk.
Exterior of the new synagogue (Ohel Jakob) in Munich at the Jewish community center area
Nate Lam and--
Charlotte Knobluch at the Munich JCC
Rabbi of the Ohel Jakob synagogue in Munich
But before that, a memorial program for the Israeli
athletes murdered in 1972—with large photos of each, as well as biographical
vignettes. This gave much added meaning
to the El Malei Rachamim chanted by Beny Maissner. Eliot Vogel put together a beautiful program
of songs and readings (and the bios).
Memorial for the Israeli Athletes of the 1972 Olympics:
Memorial to the Deporated Jews of Munich in the passageway from the JCC to the synagogue
Memorial to a former Munich synagogue
Ohel Jakob synagogue in Munich
Rabbi and Cantor of the synagogue
2 Cantors
After Professor Berk’s speech, the plan was for us to
daven minchah, but I was told that we wouldn’t be able to: the JCC didn’t want
us to, the synagogue (Orthodox, which we were about to visit within the same
complex) didn’t want us to.
This put me (us) into an awkward situation. I understood that the orthodox synagogue
wouldn’t want us to daven in our egalitarian way—and it’s THEIR place, so I
needed to respect that. But I also
received the impression that they wouldn’t PERMIT us to daven even “THEIR”
way. That wouldn’t have been
acceptable. I asked Seffie Epstein from
Ayelet to request permission for us to daven in an orthodox-appropriate way at
the synagogue. And this request was
granted. In FACT, as it turned out, the
synagogue’s hazzan was able to be with us and to lead our davenen. He had a gorgeous “topless” tenor voice. This occurred after the rabbi welcomed us (he
had also done so at the JCC) and told us a bit more about the congregation and
community, and after the cantor was asked to sing some demonstration of he
would ordinarily lead services at this congregation. (The cantor is from Israel. The congregants are mostly from FSU—Former
Soviet Union. And the congregation is,
of course, in Germany.) This all led at
some point to our singing together (was it for the last time?) Tzadik
Katamar—the so-well-known Lewandowski chorale concluding that Psalm 92 that I
had intoned back on Friday night.
There were a few who were unhappy that we had caved in to
Orthodox procedure—but I felt that there was no question that the way to pray
in that place was to do so according to their custom—and that it was very
important for us to pray in that place which has been rebuilt in post-war
Germany. And I also felt that it was
important that we be PERMITTED to pray there.
I don’t know whether there really was ever a question about that. And I really couldn’t speak about that issue
to our people at that time.
I would ultimately return to that synagogue twice more
during our Munich stay—for Friday night and Shabbat morning services (as well
as Shabbat dinner).
With the visit to the living synagogue and the recitation
of minchah (notwithstanding the brief egalitarian controversy), the pall had
begun to lift from a “lowly” emotional day.
After “dinner on your own,” a group of joyful cantors and
others convened at the bar at the Sophitel for an in formal songfest of Israeli
songs, in which several dozen participated—to the (mostly) amusement of other
hotel guests, including some of the many Muslims present in the hotel.
Lighter spirits back at the hotel Tuesday night
So ended the MUNICH Longest Day that served as a
counterpoint to the BERLIN Longest Day just 2 days earlier.
Addie and me with our new friend Yosef. A whole OTHER story to tell you . . .
