Vayetze 75th anniversary of
Kristallnacht
It is very common of us to speak
about “Brotherly Love”, so to say that the reminder that we are all brothers
will enable us human beings to live in harmony. In truth, whenever I hear of
it, my ears perk up. After all, weren’t Cain and Abel brothers-but look what happened!
Then, this Shabbat, we read of
Jacob, who is fleeing for his life from his brother. In last week’s portion,
Esau swears that he will kill his brother Jacob over what he sees as the theft
of his birthright.
Jacob and Esau become the metaphor for
Judea and Rome, and later, Jews and Christian Europe.
In a nutshell, brothers, but in a very
dysfunctional relationship, wherein the larger, more powerful brother could
easily turn and wreak havoc on the smaller and weaker brother.
I bring this to mind, because this
dates marks the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht, usually
translated as “Night of the Shattered Glass”. It got its nickname from the
piles of broken glass from the storefronts of Jewish shopkeepers that had been
broken into and vandalized on that fateful November 9 and 10 of 1938. Some
30,000 Jews were rounded up an sent to concentration camps and then to add
insult to injury, the Jews were charged with a fine of 1 Billion Marks and then, all insurance moneys from the
tremendous money was to be paid to the Government, not to the Jews.
By its scope and vehemence, it is
often thought to be the official start of the Shoah, the Holocaust.
75 years have gone by, and with the
passing of the years, the need to remember grows even stronger. Why do I say
that?
Rhonda Fink Whitman, a journalist,
went to the campus of a major university and asks students at random what they
knew about the Holocaust. These students were perfectly bright and articulate,
and completely ignorant. Not only did they not know of the Holocaust, they did
not know what country was involved, did not know that Jews were killed, did not
even know what World War II or who President Roosevelt was. I am sure you have
heard the quote by George Santayana, "Those
who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it". If there is
reason to worry for the future, these students who have no concept of the past,
are reason enough.
To prevent repeating the past,
therefore, I want to touch on several key themes.
It is easy for a people to descend
into dictatorship.
You may know I am pursuing my own
research on this period based on my parents’ experience.
My father was in Rabbinical school in
Berlin when Hitler came to power and spent two miserable years in a Berlin
prison, and upon release, fled to Austria and then to Czechoslovakia, where he
was once again captured and imprisoned. Luckily for him, when the Germans
invaded Poland in 1939, they kicked out their prisoners to the Soviet lines,
and thus my father was able to escape, further on, to Stalingrad and finally to
Kirghiz on the border with China.
But ten years before
Kristallnacht, my father was a young student of political science, and he
completed his doctoral dissertation at the University of Vienna, on “Parliamentary
Government-System and Crisis”.
Keep in mind that when he first typed his thesis, Hitler had
just recently come out of Landsberg prison and had not had one decent electoral
victory. His Nazi party had won very few seats in the Reichstag and it was so
insignificant, that my father did not mention it in his thesis! From the public
perspective, this was the Roaring
Twenties and the world economy was solid. For the most part, Woodrow Wilson had
succeeded in his goal: “The world must be made safe for
democracy.”
The only exceptions at the time were fascist Italy and
Communist Russia. Democracy was safe—or so it seemed to everyone-- but not
to the young student of political science. Very simply put, in his day, democratic government was proving
unworkable, and he warned of the collapse and takeover of government, either by
left or right dictatorship, if the parties could not speak to the needs of the
people.
He finished his studies, defended
his thesis, and on November 14, 1928, he received his signed doctorate. Ten
years, almost to the date, of the armistice, Nov. 11, 1918, that brought an end
to the Great War to “Make the World Safe for Democracy” and for which we
commemorate Veterans Day. It would also be ten years later, almost to the date,
of Kristallnacht, Night of the Broken Glass.
The height of irony is in the
signature on the diploma- Rector of the University, scholar of the Bible,
Theodore Innitzer. He would become Archbishop of Vienna, and then Cardinal. Ten
years later, as Cardinal Theodore Innitzer, he would sign a declaration to
welcome the Anschluss , the swallowing up of Austria by the Third Reich, and
add, at his signature,”Heil Hitler”. The Cardinal lived to regret it.
Democracy had fallen as the young
Weinberg had warned.
So you can see how step one in the
process of destruction is the failure of government, when good people fail to
work out their social problems. Rabbi
Hanina, who lived through the destruction of the 2nd Temple, when
Jew turned on Jew, and warned us: Pray for the welfare of the government, for
if not for fear of the government, each one would devour his friend alive!
[For the story of the thesis go to http://www.courageofspirit.com/2011/03/future-cardinal-future-rabbi-and-end-of.html
. For the full thesis in the German original go to http://digital.cjh.org:80/R/-?func=dbin-jump-full&object_id=1069721&silo_library=GEN01
]
What other theme?
The fear of the crowd. This week, I
attended a screening of a new movie, The Book Thief. It is the story of a
teenage girl whose foster parents give shelter to a Jew during the Shoah. We see a town of honest shopkeepers descend from
complicity to cooperation until they themselves become engulfed by the evil.
The degradation begins with the burning of books in the town square. Books and
the realm of ideas are an integral part of the film and so, therefore, the
burning of the books presages what we know will happen. The German Jewish poet Heinrich Heine warned us a century before: “Where
they have burned books, they will end in burning human beings.”
Only one family holds themselves
back from the barbarism and seek to remind their fellows of their humanity. In
the end, though, death comes to reap vengeance on all, the innocent as well as
the guilty, as the entire town in destroyed in the course of the war.
Evil consumes the by stander. Therefore,
we have “al taamod al dam reyecha” if you stand by idly, uninvolved, by your
neighbor’s blood, you will become the killer and in turn be killed.
So
we have silent acquiescence to the mob.
Yet
one more theme.
This
was a busy movie week. I went to another screening, this one of a Polish film, The
Aftermath. While the Book Thief was in many ways a mesmerizing film, this one
was a chilling horror. Two brothers discover that the entire town, including
their own dear father, had conspired and participated in actively burning their
Jewish neighbors to death. It is a film that has raised much furor in Poland,
as the Poles have always seen themselves as the victims and blamed the killing
of the great mass of Jews on the Germans. To the credit of the current Polish
government, there is a willingness to come to grips with that past, and the
introduction was given by the Polish Consul-General, Mariusz Brymora.
Mass murder has its roots in
something as simple as greed and lust. So, in this case, the Jews had farm land
which their Polish neighbors wanted. What better than to do what the German
rulers wanted to do anyway, but to kill the Jews and take the land? The
villagers throw out the old accusation of the Jew as Christ killer, but that is
their excuse; the village priest, honorable and brave, protects the two
brothers who have decided to reveal the truth. No, it was not religion that
lead to the destruction of the Jews, but human cupidity.
Have you ever look at the Ten Commandments
in reverse?
Numbers 6-10 are in a progression when we go in
reverse order. The perpetrators start by violating number 10,” Though shall not
covet” the neighbor’s property. It must lead to going to all lengths to justify
and excuse the greed at number 9,” Thou
shalt not bear false witness “ with “the Big Lie”,” the “Dolchstoss-Backstab”
or blame the Jew as capitalist and
communist.
In the movie, one of the villagers desires a
Jewish woman, who refuses his advances, as we are warned in number 8, Thou
shall not commit adultery. The perpetrators
then go on to violate number 7, against stealing, and finally, they have to descended to violate number 6,”Thou
shalt not murder”, because that is the inevitable dead end of the decline into
savagery.
Is there a shining light through all
this darkness? In both movies, there is someone whose conscience is stronger
than hatred, greed, or fear. There is the possibility that the human being can rise
above the mire.
In this week’s Torah portion, Jacob
dreams of the famous ladder, upon which the angels go up and down. A teacher of
mine once told me that the words to describe the ladder, “ Sulam mutzav artza
vrosho magia shamayma” described the human being. “A ladder, the base is stuck
in the earth, but head reaches the heavens.” Thus, we as human beings can be
incredibly base, stuck in the mud and mire, but we can reach heaven ward in our
moral actions, in our taking responsibility.
That is the lesson we need to take
away with us for this Shabbat, May we be blessed to see a day when all humans
have the courage and fortitude to reach “ shamayma”, to reach heavenwards and
move beyond resentment, greed and hatred. Amen.
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