May 7


American and German students take cross-ocean class on the Holocaust

Students at Vassar College in the US and the University of Potsdam in
Germany share ideas - and cultural differences - on Germany's 'darkest
hour.'


On a dreary afternoon in Manhattan's Lower East Side, Ulrike
Kollodzeiski walks pensively through the Eldridge Street Synagogue, the
first grand house of worship built by Eastern European immigrants more
than 100 years ago, back when this area of New York had been one of the
most burgeoning Jewish communities in America.

Along with 14 other students from the University of Potsdam in Germany,
Ms. Kollodzeiski has come to learn more about Jewish culture and to
reflect on the enduring legacy of what she calls the "darkest hour" of her
country's history.

She was intrigued by the Moorish architecture of the synagogue a style
common for those built in the 19th century and the original ornate
Tzedakah alms box, with its seven separate slots for various community
causes. The synagogue has been restored in the last decade and is now a
museum.

"I really learned nothing about Jewish culture in general at [high
school]," says Kollodzeiski, who is now studying history and religion at
Potsdam. "I'd taken part in an excursion to Krakau, to the concentration
camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau ... [but] Jews seemed to exist only as victims
during the time of National Socialism."

Kollodzeiski and her fellow students are participating in an
ocean-crossing class developed at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., by
history professor Maria Hhn and German professor Silke von der Emde. In
March, a group of American students had traveled to Berlin, visiting its
synagogues and Holocaust memorials.

While it is billed as simply a multidisciplinary, multicountry course
exploring how the Holocaust is variously remembered and memorialized in
these countries, the class offers a prism into the different ways
Americans and Germans bear the atrocities of the past and how this informs
their understanding of conflicts today.

From each side, they are a select group of students, with interests
perhaps not typical of most. But, as many of the German students note,
their country has been going through a dizzying cultural upheaval since
reunification. In 1990, fewer than 30,000 Jews lived in the combined East
and West Germany a fraction of the number in Manhattan alone.

Today, however, the Jewish presence is once again visible in Germany:
nearly 200,000 now reside there, making it again one of the largest Jewish
populations in Europe. In addition, Germany, like many other European
countries, is grappling with a growing Muslim population, immigrant
workers who provide cheap labor but remain, for the most part, culturally
isolated and stigmatized by the specter of terrorism.

"Germans are just beginning to see themselves as a multicultural
society, but they still see it as ordered other people who act like
them," says Professor Hhn. "And in many ways, as the students explore
these questions, America is seen right or wrong as the representative of
the victims."

Indeed, for many of the German students, two generations removed from
the horrors of the mid-20th century, questions of cultural identity and
pride often evoke an uneasy ambivalence.

"There is still in Germany a vivid anti-Semitism," says Christoph
Kasten, a history student at Potsdam. "It's not on the surface anymore,
but it [has become] more subtle, changing its face.... And people are
unsure of the meaning of National Socialism and how it affects Germany
today. Some are calling the young people to draw a line under Auschwitz,
to make up a new German identity without Auschwitz."

While Mr. Kasten strongly disagrees with this trend, he does see it as a
crucial question as his country continues to bridge the divide between the
West and its former Communist half as well as the tensions arising from
the influx of eastern European and Middle Eastern immigrants.

During the semester, with both groups visiting the other's country and
later interacting via videoconference, they've had the opportunity to do
research projects together. Kollodzeiski worked with American students
studying the impact of a 1978 television miniseries on the Holocaust,
while Kasten and his American partner looked at the impact of Daniel
Goldhagen's book "Hitler's Willing Executioners" in Germany.

"Americans are very open," says Kollodzeiski. "They ask more questions
than we do, because of the education system, I think. We're more, 'What
does it mean?,' in an academic way, and it is not as much about ourselves
and how we feel about it."

And as many of the German students pointed out, the American students
were keenly interested in issues of representation how television and
movies have shaped their understanding of the Holocaust, and whether these
images could truly encompass the magnitude of the history.

"A lot of Americans, their understanding of the Holocaust is very much
rooted in the media popular books like [Elie Wiesel's] 'Night,' movies
like 'Schindler's List,' the miniseries," says Kegan Andeski, an English
and German major at Vassar. "I think that for the German students, they've
grown up around it, they've seen the camps. Movies ... are just part of
their discussion. It doesn't define it for them like it does with us."

Mr. Andeski is frustrated, too, at what he sees as the Hollywood version
of the Holocaust, which he considers distorting. And while he also didn't
care for some of the memorials he visited when in Germany in March some
seemed overly dramatic and emotionally manipulative he was deeply moved
by the artifacts on display, like victims' letters to family members. "And
Ravensbrueck [concentration camp] was a very powerful place," he says. "On
a certain level, it was so powerful because it wasn't powerful at all. At
this point, they're just normal buildings, and in that sense it was very
frightening."

During the week, as students worked together on their projects, they
spent time with Ruth Klger, a survivor and author of "Still Alive: A
Holocaust Girlhood Remembered," a controversial bestseller in Germany. A
successful literary scholar, tenured at Princeton University and the
University of California, Irvine, she engaged the students on issues of
censorship, the representation of the Holocaust in art, and German
identity.

Her memoir had generated controversy in part because she recalls how
female guards were far more humane than male guards in the camps. She
recounts her difficult relationship with her mother, who also survived.
But her unsentimental and sometimes prickly style surprised some students.
When they noted how "Mein Kampf" and the swastika are banned in Germany,
she gave a strong defense of the US-style freedom of speech. "I don't
believe in outlawing symbols, unless there is a clear and present
danger.... And 'Mein Kampf' would never turn anyone into a Nazi," she
said.

In some ways, the German students did feel the acute burden of the
history they were discussing and its importance to the future of their
country. "Everywhere in the world, the cultural distances are so short,
and yet so long," says Kollodzeiski. "It is important to respect each
other, but how can you respect each other if you don't know each other?"

(source: Christian Science Monitor)