German Lawmakers & Anti-Semitism

I ran across this piece today. These are the kinds of questions and the issues I wonder about. I would answer the question asked at the end by saying, come and live here for a while, you'll know.

"Two weeks ago was the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht. German society, now expert at such commemorations, gestured in all the appropriate ways. Angela Merkel visited the newly renovated Rykestrasse synagogue. Mozart’s Requiem was performed at the Gendarmenmarkt. All the newspapers featured reviews of a new exhibit about the burning and pillaging that augured worse to come. The public centerpiece of all this memorializing was to be a standard resolution, a statement of concern, really—unanimously supported by all the members of the Bundestag—decrying anti-Semitism and calling for renewed vigilance. It almost didn’t happen. When a vote finally took place on November 5, it was only after the ruling coalition of Christian and Social Democrats and the extreme left party had engaged in a brutal round of accusatory historical regurgitation. Der Spiegel said everyone concerned in the episode “should be red in the face with shame.” In the end, to avoid what would have been a full-blown fiasco, two separate statements for the dueling factions were produced and passed.

Why did this no-brainer of a resolution create such problems for German lawmakers?"

By Gal Beckerman

Jewish Cemetery Vandalised With Pig's Head & Blood

Gotha, Germany Jewish Cemetery
Pictures of a shocking Nazi hate attack on a Jewish cemetery in the town of Gotha have horrified Germany.

A bloody pig’s head was found stuck to the middle of a Star of David on the graveyard gate at 5.30am yesterday. A sheet next to it, smeared with blood, held a chilling message: "6 million lies".

Nazism and hatred toward Jews (and people that are "different") is alive and well here in Germany. For those that think otherwise, you are completely misinformed. As this Bild article says, there were over 17,000 of these kinds of crimes committed last year here, 18 involving cemeteries. To desecrate cemeteries and disrespect the dead like this, speaks volumes to me. In a way, I feel sorry for these uneducated, misinformed souls. I would relish the opportunity to teach them about the history of the Jewish people - that would be wonderful.  

These kinds of things motivate me to "turn up the volume" on my project. I want to read about people that are trying show the truth and create discourse to help people learn the truth. The other side doesn't seem to get fair play on this topic. We'll see if we can change that.

This is a link to the Bild article (in English). Thank you Caron.
Credit: By OLIVER LÖHR and JAN MEYER

It just never stops....

Former E. German Synagogue Defaced
November 19, 2008

BERLIN (JTA) -- A newly renovated synagogue in the former East Germany was defaced with anti-Semitic graffiti, police reported.

It was the third act of vandalism against a Jewish site reported in the former East Germany in the last  two days.

According to reports, perpetrators painted anti-Semitic statements and illegal symbols in yellow on the front door of a synagogue in Goerlitz covering more than a square yard. The vandalism was discovered Monday.

Reached in Vienna, Alex Jacobowitz, the chairman of Goerlitz’s small Jewish community, said he would comment after seeing the police report.

The synagogue in Goerlitz, originally dedicated in 1909, was the only synagogue in the state of Saxony to survive the Kristallnacht pogrom of 70 years ago. It was reopened to the public following extensive renovations on the anniversary of Kristallnacht, Nov. 9.

Also Monday, two Jewish cemeteries in the former East German state of Thuringia were found defaced with red paint. In one case, the bloody head of a pig was hung on the cemetery’s iron gates. Police reportedly were able to retrieve evidence at the cemeteries in Gotha and Erfurt.

Seligenstadt Synagogue in Wet Plate Collodion

Today, I made the image that will appear on the first page of my book (I think). The image shows the original steps of the Seligenstadt synagogue. These steps are the only thing left of the synagogue. It was burned on November 9/10, 1938 during Kristallnacht. If you think about the metaphor of stairs (especially ascending/descending) you'll get where I'm going with this.

The emptiness is what moves me the most when I'm making photographs where the mighty, vibrant synagogues once stood in these small villages. I'm almost trying to photograph what isn't there. It's very difficult to do. It's also very sad.  

A friend from Berlin, Jan, met us in Seligenstadt this morning. His mother lives there and his step-father has done an enormous amount of research on the Jewish community (that was) in Seligenstadt. 

After making a positive image and a negative image of the same scene (the steps), we (Summer, Jan and I) went for coffee and looked at the "stumbling stones" around the village. There was a significant Jewish community that lived in this village until 1938. It's the same story in all of these places. Jan had newspaper clippings from the Seligenstadt newspaper (from 1935) that showed a page of ads for office furniture, shoes and clothes, and in the middle of these "common ads" was another kind of ad that read, "The Jews are our misfortune" ("Die Juden sind unser Unglück"). Mind-blowing and very educational.

The last two images are the positive (8x10 Black Glass Ambrotype) and the negative (8x10). I'll make a POP print this week of of the negative.

Seligenstadt Synagogue Remains 
I wasn't sure about the light, being in a hole and surrounded with "red" and "yellow". 
"Where does the shadow of my hand fall?" 1100 hours, 4 second exposure. 
Pouring Collodion on an 8"x10" piece of black glass.  
Putting the "loaded" plate holder onto the camera.  
Processing the plate.

"Seligenstadt Synagogue Stairs" 8"x10" Black Glass Ambrotype (sold) 
8"x10" negative - Seligenstadt Synagogue Stairs. 
I'm going back to Seligenstadt next week. We're suppose to have a key to get into the Juden Friedhof (Jewish cemetery) - it was vandalized during Kristallnacht as well. Look for those images next week!

Thank you Summer and Jan. It was a great day. This is very important work, thanks for being a part of it.

German Town Nixes Kristallnacht Ceremony

The German town of Görlitz is refusing to allow its Jewish community to hold its own ceremony marking Kristallnacht.

After Kristallnacht. Instead, the only ceremony marking the 70th anniversary of the Kristallnacht pogrom will be held by the local Protestant church, which has traditionally focused on all victims of the Third Reich.

The small Jewish community had planned to bring a Torah scroll from Dresden into a newly renovated synagogue, which dates from 1909. It is the only synagogue to have survived Kristallnacht in the state of Saxony.

But the city insists that ceremonies must be secular and inclusive. The former synagogue was deconsecrated after the 1938 pogrom. Following its six-year renovation, the structure now has room for 230 guests.

"The city has canceled the entire event planned by the Jewish community and the Society for the Promotion of the Synagogue," which was to include several performances and speeches,  Alex Jacobowitz, cantor and chairman of the town's tiny Jewish community, told JTA.

He insisted that the Jewish community's program would be inclusive.

The Society for the Promotion of the Synagogue is a secular group authorized to hold ecumenical events in the building. It cooperates with the Jewish community. Now, only the ceremony run by the local Protestant church is still scheduled to take place in the building.

The city bought the synagogue from the remnant Dresden Jewish community in 1963, and then formally purchased it again from the Claims Conference after German unification, according to Jacobowitz, a musician who came from New York to Germany in 1991.

The approximately 30-member Jewish community has held services in a small sanctuary within the building for about a year, Jacobowitz said.

Story from JTA - http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/breaking/110844.html

Kristallnacht Remnants Unearthed Near Berlin

A huge dumping ground for the destroyed remains of Jewish property plundered during Kristallnacht has been found north of Berlin by an investigative journalist.

The destruction from Kristallnacht. The site, which is the size of four football pitches, in Brandenburg, contains an extensive array of personal and ceremonial items looted during orchestrated nationwide riots against Jewish property and places of worship on the night of November 9 1938. It is believed the goods were brought by rail to the outskirts of the village and dumped on designated land.

Yaron Svoray, the Israeli journalist who made the discovery, said it was a happy coincidence that he had stumbled across the artifacts so close to the 70th anniversary of the pogrom, also known as the Night of Broken Glass. (The Full Article Here - from The Guardian)
Photo: Jewish shops laid waste on Kristallnacht in 1938. Battmann/Corbis

I'm headed to Berlin Friday (24th Oct), I would really like to check this out. I doubt I could get anywhere near it though. I'm not even sure they've released the exact location yet. Here's a video of Yaron talking about what he found.