I want to use this blog post to just say thank you to the participants and the organizers of the Third Generation Initiative.
Thank you for enabling.
Thank you for sharing.
Thank you for caring.
Thank you for being
a part of my life.
Never again will we meet as strangers.
You will always have a place in my heart.
Today the trip took us to the former Concentration Camp Sachsenhausen.
There is not much to say. Let me just share a poem.
There are things to be said. No doubt.
And in one way or another
they will be said. But to whom tell.The silences? With whom share them
now? For a moment the sky is
empty and then there was a bird.
by Cid Corman
Imagine for a moment your best friend. She is going to get married to her big love.
A few weeks before the wedding you see the groom with another woman. They seem very very close. Actually it seems that they have something going on. You do not know all the facts, but your gut feeling just tells you that this guy is cheating on your best friend.
What would you do?
Would you quietly sit there and let her do the (in your opinion) wrong thing? Would you let her marry the guy? Would you shut your mouth?
Or would you stand up and talk to your friend, even if that could mean the end of your friendship?
What would your decision be?
Sometimes, standing up and voicing your opinion can be very much NOT appreciated, but in the end could turn out to be the right thing.
Tikkun olam (Hebrew: תיקון עולם) is a Hebrew phrase that means “repairing the world.” In Judaism, the concept of tikkun olam originated in the early rabbinic period.
Dr. Charlotte Knobloch, whom we met yesterday morning, left a lasting impression within me. She herself is a survivor of the Shoa (or a word better known to Germans … the Holocaust). She told us her story of growing up in a Nazi Germany, how hard it was for her, and how she managed to survive the horrors of that time. AND she said, that today she feels at home in Germany, that she actualy feels German. And this after all the things that Germans did to the Jewish people (and to many onthers) during World War II.
This left me speechless.
Dr. Knobloch mentioned that in her opinion teaching “the young” and encouraging a dialogue that everyone can learn from, is one of the most important things that should happen between Germans and the Jewish people nowadays.
I fully agree.
There are so many things that I have learned during this trip already.
Things aboout current events that are “public knowledge” … if you know where to search.
Things that you would not be aware of, if you only read German media.
Things that shape your opinion. If you are lucky enough to know them.
So … what can we do … what can I do to change that?
When this trip is over, I’ll create a website with the goal to foster opinion exchange between young Jewish and Germans. A website to give answers to questions on the past. But also to give answers to questions of current international affairs.
Dialogue is the only way to understand each other. The only way to tikkun olam.
So I hope that many of my fellow Third Generation Initiative participants will join the discussion.
Did you ever struggle for the right words?
Well, I can say that I did a lot of times.
Participating in the Third Generation Initiative … I can tell you I have struggled for the right words a lot lately.
How would you describe what Germans are today … and most of all … why they are the way they are? And could you please at the same time explain why Israel is the way it is?
We heard a speaker yesterday that could do exactly that.
Let me just take one of the statements that really stuck in my mind.
What did Germans and Israeli learn from World War II?
Israeli: We will never again be victims.
Germans: We will never again be perpetrators.
And rightly so!
Those three simple lines do explain a lot about why Germany is so passive sometimes in its international relations, especially when military force comes into play. And it explains pretty well Israels standpoint.
For today I will just leave you with this statement to think about it yourself.
I think it is well worth it.
