The Trouble with Trouble

I've been reading too much Holocaust material. I don't even know why.

I have always been an avid reader, but lately anything that isn't seriously factual is boring. I can't be bothered with novels and didn't finish the one for my Book Club last month (well, it was pretty lame). But I have this drive to read World War II stuff - Holocaust stuff or at the very least History.

The problem is that I'm getting very depressed and fearful. I should not be reading this stuff if I'm going to Berlin in two months. How am I ever going to "enjoy" myself? or take in the sights without bitterness, anger, fear or anxiety???

I thought I'd save myself from the above by reading about Polish schtetls (little Jewish enclaves in Poland) - WRONG! If anything it's worse. The amount of anti-semitism that existed prior to World War II is mind boggling. How my Mother's family ever survived with any degree of sanity I'll never understand. Well, maybe they didn't!

I certainly knew that my Mom didn't think very much of Poles! She hated the Polish teachers and the Polish schools and left Poland at the very first opportunity. Which I don't know exactly when that was. I have no information like passports, visas or papers -and G-d knows, my Mom saved every paper. So my suspicion is that it wasn't exactly legal. Maybe it was sort of like the Mexicans crossing over into the USA these days.

My uncles were there in Germany - Berlin - first. My Mom, her sister, Toni and her Mother joined them at some point. The Uncles had set up a tailoring business and it was apparently doing well - so they could afford to support the three women. As far as I know, my Mother didn't work in Germany until she married my Father and did the office work for his business.
He "arranged" for her to get legal papers - somehow.

I don't think my Mom ever went back to Poland to visit - maybe once - I have a dim memory of something of that kind being talked about but it certainly wasn't more than once. My Aunt Toni and Uncle Selig must have been absolutely desperate to go back to Poland in 1939 - my Grandmother Chaya went with them.

I have neighbors who are Polish. A very nice, friendly young couple. They bought the house next door a couple of years ago and I enjoy their children - 4 year old Kai and 1 1/2 year old Nella (or Bella) I can never keep it straight.

These people are ostensibly Catholic - although I don't think they observe very much.
They know we are Jewish but there is no discussion about it - maybe the Communist era they grew up in burned all the anti-semitism out of them.

I've heard stories about their Fathers who were politically diametrically opposed - and how the church was the only save place to be anti-Communist. Apparently the Communists knew better than to try and drive the church out of Poland - they are such an observant people. But the church has never been a friend to the Jews and certainly not the Polish church. Much like the German Lutheran/Christian churches they preached against the Jews and libeled them whenever they could and inflamed passions every Easter so that the Jews stayed inside and hidden when they knew the services would be over and groups of young (and maybe old) thugs would be about looking for Jews to beat up.

So I wonder about that society - are they no longer anti-semitic? I've heard they welcome Jews back to visit and to live there. There is even a small Jewish community growing there. But... it's hard reading. And, it makes me wonder about my neighbors - and their families, and their history. What do they know about the Jews? What do they think about us? I'm afraid to ask..........what if they confirm my fears? Better not go there.

My people - the Jews - were always being persecuted, blamed and hounded. Of course, the writer of this book is Jewish - so we'll cut him some slack but it certainly fills in the gaps of stories I've heard from my Mother and my Uncles.

My husband also has a family history of Polish schtetls - and his family is no warmer or fondly remembering the Polish life than mine.

It is scary because one of the books I read "Hitler's Willing Executioners" - a very scholarly approach to the Holocaust - talks about the streams of anti-semitism running throughout Europe sometimes closer to the surface and sometimes more subterranean - but violently there since the Middle Ages. The author of that book says it is a mistake to believe that the people of Germany (or for that matter Poland and Russia) are like Americans and free of prejudice - or that they even regard prejudice to be an evil thing. He, the author, believes that those feelings of hatred are there waiting to be accessed by some political or social (or religious) figure for their own purposes.

And sadly, in the book about Poland, it is abundantly clear that the amusing characteristics we laugh about in the Jews - the total inability to agree on anything - was a fundamental flaw in their ability to survive in Poland, in Russia, in the Ukraine and in Germany. All these groups -
orthodox, Zionist, Socialist, and subcategories of each - could not agree on the time of day, let alone a method of countering either in a literary nor a physical response to the forces around them that ultimately destroyed so many.

What good does it do to be bright, creative, talented, and scholars if we are unable to protect ourselves and our families from the libels and cruelty of the world? My rabbi here in Sonoma County - safe, sane, beautiful and liberal - believes that it is all possible to happen again - even here. And how can I answer that? Down deep I don't feel totally safe - I don't think it's beyond the realm of possibility that it could happen again and I don't know how to protect those I love from that possibility.