A Nazi's Son Serves In the Israeli Army!

Summary

The story of Bernd Wollschlaeger, son of a Nazi officer, highlights his compelling journey from Germany to Israel, where he sought redemption and understanding of the Jewish culture he once knew little about. Born into a family with a complicated past, Bernd grew up hearing two starkly different narratives about World War II from his parents. His father's glorified tales of war contrasted sharply with his mother's account of loss and horror. This dissonance, along with pivotal events during his adolescence, sparked Bernd's journey towards truth and reconciliation with the Jewish community. Eventually converting to Judaism and serving in the Israel Defense Forces, Bernd's story is a profound testament to transformation, acceptance, and personal growth.

Highlights

• Bernd appreciated the National Jewish Retreat for allowing him to share his unique story. 🎤
• As a child, Bernd was caught between his father's Nazi glorification and his mother's tales of war horror. 😮
• The Munich Olympics in 1972 became a pivotal moment in Bernd's understanding of his family's past. 🏅
• Bernd's father's refusal to acknowledge the Holocaust pushed Bernd towards a journey of truth. 🔍
• Encounters with Israeli peers opened Bernd's eyes to a world beyond his upbringing. 🌍
• Bernd's decision to convert to Judaism and join the IDF marked a profound personal transformation. 🇮🇱
• Returning to Germany, Bernd reflected on his parents' legacy and chose a path of understanding and teaching. 📖
• Bernd now shares his story to emphasize the importance of learning from history and fostering love over hate. ❤️

Key Takeaways

• Bernd's journey from the son of a Nazi to a devout Jew highlights the power of personal transformation. 🌟
• Understanding history and seeking personal truth can be life-altering, as seen in Bernd's quest for knowledge about the Holocaust. 📚
• Building bridges between cultures and communities can lead to redemption and reconciliation. 🤝
• Bernd's story illustrates the strength of character needed to confront and move beyond a painful family legacy. 💪
• Forgiveness is complex but essential for personal peace, as Bernd found with his own father. 🕊️

Overview

Bernd Wollschlaeger grew up in a home steeped in contrasting stories about Germany's past—glorification from his Nazi father and sorrow from his war-torn mother. This dichotomy ensnared his childhood in confusion and silence, yet planted seeds of curiosity about the world's historical truths. As Bernd delved into the complexities of his family's history, he faced a daunting contradiction: his father's dismissive stance on the Holocaust versus emerging revelations from school and other educational encounters.

A turning point occurred as Bernd interacted with Israeli teens and visited Israel—a nation born from the ashes of his father's ideology. Stirred by warmth and historical insight, Bernd embarked on a transformative quest that saw him embrace Judaism, change his life's path, and serve in the Israeli Defense Forces. This decision was not just personal redemption but a symbolic reconciliation with the Jewish narratives his father vilified.

Through his experiences, Bernd discovered the strength of forgiveness and the importance of addressing the wrongs of the past, even those committed by one's family. Today, he shares his journey to impart lessons about love transcending hate, conscientious remembrance, and the ongoing task of building a world accepting of all backgrounds.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 01:00: Introduction and Background In the chapter titled 'Introduction and Background,' Bernd Wolschlager acknowledges his appreciation for being invited to speak at a national Jewish retreat. He reflects on his unique background, noting that his presence at this retreat is quite unexpected given his past. He expresses honor in being part of the event and reflects on the unlikely journey that led him to this point, suggesting that where he comes from is quite different from the environment he finds himself in now.
• 01:00 - 01:30: Family History and Father's Perspective The speaker discusses the complexity of their background, highlighting the contrast between their family's history and their current identity. They emphasize being the child of a Nazi perpetrator, rather than a Holocaust survivor, which is a significant divergence from common narratives. Despite this, the speaker has embraced a new identity, being an Israeli citizen, serving as an officer in the IDF, and now living and working as a physician in Miami, USA. This chapter explores themes of history, identity, and personal growth amidst challenging family legacies.
• 01:30 - 03:00: Discovery of German History The speaker begins by reflecting on their journey from Florida, explaining that their personal story serves as a unique but relatable narrative. They intend to share aspects of their story that, while individual and unusual, also illuminate common elements of human history and experience.
• 03:00 - 04:30: 1972 Munich Olympics Tragedy The chapter tells the story of someone born in 1958 in the historic town of Bamberg, Germany, which is known for its rich Christian heritage. This serves as the starting point of the narrative linked to the 1972 Munich Olympics Tragedy.
• 04:30 - 06:00: Confrontation with Father's Beliefs The chapter 'Confrontation with Father's Beliefs' delves into the historical significance of Bamberg, a city that was central to the Holy Roman Empire in the 11th century and where the only pope buried outside Rome is interred. It also explores Bamberg's rich Jewish history, dating back a thousand years, highlighting the Jewish community's experiences moving into the city during the 14th and 15th centuries, eventually establishing a joint existence with non-Jews, living harmoniously for hundreds of years.
• 06:00 - 07:30: Meeting Israeli Youth and Visiting Israel The chapter titled 'Meeting Israeli Youth and Visiting Israel' reflects on the influence of Jewish culture and history in a specific region, despite the current low population of Jewish people there. The Franconian dialect, a Bavarian slang, includes many Jewish words, indicating the deep integration of Jewish culture. The environment highlighted in the chapter is characterized as peaceful, with history as a pervasive part of daily life, suggested by references to old buildings, churches, and cathedrals. The teaching of history begins in elementary school, emphasizing the importance placed on historical knowledge in this area.
• 07:30 - 09:00: Joining Jewish Community in Germany A child reflects on their early awareness that certain historical events were not discussed by adults in their community. As young as six to eight years old, the child instinctively knew not to ask questions about the past. Although not punished for inquiring, they noticed a clear silence from adults when it came to certain topics. This reflection highlights a unique aspect of growing up in a community where history was, at times, left unspoken.
• 09:00 - 10:30: Conversion to Judaism and Moving to Israel The chapter titled 'Conversion to Judaism and Moving to Israel' explores the aftermath of World War II in Bamberg, a city that, although not destroyed, reflects the war's impacts. The presence of 15,000 American soldiers stationed on the outskirts becomes a defining aspect of the city's society, which has a population of 75,000. The presence of American personnel, including military patrols and police, integrates into the local culture, making foreigners a common aspect of life for the residents, including children.
• 10:30 - 12:00: Military Service in Israel and Family Life The chapter titled 'Military Service in Israel and Family Life' explores the psychological and cultural impact of war on a family. The story is narrated from the perspective of a child who is aware of a war that affected their parents. Although the specific war is not named, it is clear that it had a significant impact on their family life. The child notes that their parents did not speak about the war and that they were not originally from Bamberg, as indicated by their lack of the local Franconian dialect. Instead, the parents spoke in High German, or 'hawk deutsch,' which is described as the language of literature. This emphasis on language reflects a desire to maintain cultural identity and perhaps a connection to a broader German culture. The chapter delves into themes of memory, cultural heritage, and the unspoken burdens of war.
• 12:00 - 13:30: Reflection on Forgiveness and Hatred This chapter delves into the narrator's family history, focusing particularly on their father's side. The narrative reveals a legacy of military service and affluence, with the narrator's father sharing stories of his birth in Berlin to a wealthy family of landowners. The paternal lineage boasts a tradition of military service, with both the narrator's grandfather and great-grandfather having served as officers, the latter in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. The chapter sets up themes of familial pride and the complexities of heritage, possibly hinting at broader reflections on forgiveness and hatred within the context of this family's history.
• 13:30 - 15:00: Closing Remarks and Message The chapter discusses the speaker's father's experiences during World War II. His father, along with his brothers, fought in the war and recounted tales of glory and heroism to the speaker. Specifically, his father served as a high-ranking tank commander under General Guderian, who was instrumental in developing the blitzkrieg strategy. The narrative highlights his father's involvement in various fronts from the onset of hostilities when Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939.

A Nazi's Son Serves In the Israeli Army! Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 my name is bernd wolschlager and i want to first of all thank the organizer of this event to allow me to speak i'm a little bit unusual addition to a national jewish retreat because my story comes from a very different world and standing here and i'm honored that i stand here at a national jewish retreat and looking back where i'm coming from this is probably the place that i never thought i would
• 00:30 - 01:00 end up at and i'm not saying it in any disrespectful way because i'm coming from a different world in every aspect i'm not the son of a survivor i'm the son of a perpetrator my father was not a famous rabbi or jewish scholar but he was a nazi and i am his son and i'm also an israeli citizen served in the idf was an officer in the idf and live now here in the united states and i'm a physician here in miami
• 01:00 - 01:30 florida so how do you come from there to here well this is my story and this is the reason that i'm here to share this story and to show you aspects of the story that are individual unusual on one hand but on the other hand also highlight aspects of history that are so common to all of us an aspect of humanity so when i start i have to start where i
• 01:30 - 02:00 everything began and that began of course when and how and where i was born i was born in 1958 in a beautiful town in germany called bamberg anybody ever been in germany um thank you and those of you who know german history the name bamberg and bamberger is connected to the region bamberg is in a town in the south of germany an old city more than a thousand years old with a very rich history of christian life it
• 02:00 - 02:30 was actually the center of the holy roman empire in the 11th century and the only pope buried outside rome is buried in bamberg on the other hand it has a long jewish history dating back for a thousand years where jews not moved into the city in the 14th and 15th century and later on moved out of the city and formed a community of peasant jews that lived with non-jews for many hundred years in a very harmonic and
• 02:30 - 03:00 in a peaceful environment and the jews and jewish life was so much woven into the fabric of society that until today the language the local language of franconian language is a slang of bavarian language contains many jewish words um very few jews but many jewish words and in this city i grew up in aware of history and the richness of history because history was all around all building churches cathedrals we were taught history in elementary schools you
• 03:00 - 03:30 got little pictures of famous buildings and and famous bambergers that live there and yet i have to identify those uh historic events but one thing that i noted as a child six seven years old eight years old not intellectually but i sense that certain things about the past you better don't ask because the adult wouldn't talk about it and not that we were punished for asking but nobody talked about it and it was
• 03:30 - 04:00 obvious that something happened in the past because we as children knew that there was a war in the war called the second world war the city was never destroyed but there were effects of that war in that city fifteen thousand american soldiers stationed in the outskirts of bamberg part of the fabric of a society with 75 000 people very prominently in the in the in bamberg society american soldiers american patrols mps military police we knew that foreigners
• 04:00 - 04:30 and strangers there obviously and in uniform obviously we didn't win that war but that's all what i knew about that war as a child i knew that my parents were affected by that war but they wouldn't talk about it and knew they were not from bamberg because they didn't speak the local dialect the local franconian and they told me not to speak it at all at home but they spoke they preferred speaking a the german of literature the so-called hawk deutsch and when i asked my parents where
• 04:30 - 05:00 they're from i got two different narratives from my father's side he told me that he was born in berlin as a son of a wealthy family of um of land holders and my grandfather or my grand grandfather was an officer serving in the war franco-prussian war in 1870 so my father proudly told me and my grandfather was an officer in the first
• 05:00 - 05:30 world war and my father and all of his brothers fought in the second world war and my father told me the stories about the second world war as the story of glory and heroism like any story that told me about the war that in that war he served as one of the highest ranking tank commanders under the command of general guderian the father of the german blitzkrieg on every front that germany opened from the september the 1st 1939 when he invaded poland spearheading the
• 05:30 - 06:00 tiger tank units that invaded poland um then invasion of france and then the conquest of russia where he was wounded uh returned to the senate to germany and then fought the americans on the western front and was captured in april 1945 in a suicide mission trying to fight off the invading american forces after the battle of the bulge and spent the next year in war prison as a prisoner of war so this story of the war that my father
• 06:00 - 06:30 told me was the story of glorification the war is heroism the knight in shining armor and he was awarded and he proudly showed me that the knights crossed by a man whom he proudly referred to as his fuhrer adolf hitler and so for me as a child there was no doubt my father was a hero and this message was reinforced by his old war bodies who came to visit us at least once a year telling us the story about the war and referring to my father's arturo our hero his first name was arthur arturo our hero so my father was a hero on the other hand my mother
• 06:30 - 07:00 told me completely different story of the of the war the war is horror the war's loss she was an ethnic german grew up in the eastern part of europe in czechoslovakia on the western edges of czechoslovakia as a sudetent deutsche as it did in german for hundreds of years her fa her ancestry dates back into this local area in caldspot and wealthy merchant family beautiful villa in the outskirts of caldspot she still had the picture of that villa that was hanging on the wall of our house and everything lost as a
• 07:00 - 07:30 result of the war having to flee from the advancing soviet troops towards the west and just arrived with nothing penniless just the clothes left on a body uh in western part of germany and bamberg so the war is a horror it's a catastrophe that never we should go back to and there was something else in our house that that i had to struggle with there was a picture of a man a portrait of a man hanging in the hallway of our house which was a massive 19th century patrician style building
• 07:30 - 08:00 with a huge hallway and a massive storeway walkway going upstairs stairway leading upstairs and in this hallway was the largest in life portrait of a man hanging on the wall who looked like my father in uniform like i saw my father in pictures with the officers in signal on the shoulder that cross around his neck proud looking and initially i thought as a child this is a portrait of my father wow but then i figured out that he looked a little bit different
• 08:00 - 08:30 and so i asked my father who is this man and my father referred to him as a traitor now as a child i knew that traitor is a bad word but i couldn't approximate what that how somebody who looked like my father is bad i.e the traitor and my father in uniform is good what is the reason and then i found out later on from that lady upstairs who lived in the second floor of that building she was the landlady and my mother referred to her as the countess the graffin and i should never speak to her unless spoken to
• 08:30 - 09:00 that this man on the picture portrayed was in portrait of count klaus von staufenberg the german colonel who was leading the assassination attempt on adolf hitler on the 20th of july 1944 who failed and was executed the same night his widow nina von staufenberg lived upstairs and that contrast of that something happened in the past that my father was not willing to talk about that you referred to as bad as treason and my father's action that triggered a curiosity in me to understand that i
• 09:00 - 09:30 couldn't understand yet but something happened and i didn't know how to put it all together and then came the summer of 1972 i was 14 years old when everything changed and the summer of 1972 was the crown and the event of the summer of 1972 were the olympics in munich and the olympics in munich were supposedly the event that should demonstrate to the world and was building up towards the event we learned about it in school that this is the first time the germany hosts an
• 09:30 - 10:00 international event of that magnitude after the war separating germany of the past of the hitler dictatorship the berlin olympics in 1938 abused by the nazis for propaganda purposes to the event of 1972 to demonstrate to the world that we are a democratic country proud of our democratic tradition led by a democratically elected government among them the the that time chancellor was willie brunt who himself was a victim of the nazis who returned to
• 10:00 - 10:30 germany after the war as a member of the social democratic party had to flee germany returned to germany after the war rebuilding his party and became chancellor in 1969 and this chancellor this prime minister gained a tremendous moral standing in the western world because in december of 1970 he traveled to poland prior to the resumption of diplomatic relationship and in front of the washoe ghetto memorial he sank on his knees bowed his head and in public prayed and asked him for forgiveness for the sins germany
• 10:30 - 11:00 committed for the first time a german politician in public demonstrated his pain and sorrow about what happened in the past and his willingness to atone and i remember that day in december 1970 because my father slammed the newspaper on the breakfast table pointing with the finger on the picture on the chancellor kneeling in front of the memorial screaming farat vida ein ferreta treason again a traitor because for my father there was nothing to forgive for and i was perplexed why
• 11:00 - 11:30 i was a catholic born and raised catholic my mother was a devout catholic going to church an altar boy but kneeling in front of a memorial was a sign of humility was a sign of strength not a sign of weakness and treason why is my father so mad and this same chancellor my father so despised opened the olympics in the summer of 19th august 1972 to a great fanfare and we watch it on live tv every team parading to the stadium and my parents uh invited friends over and it was a joyous atmosphere wine and
• 11:30 - 12:00 food and celebrating and suddenly a team paraded into the stadium carrying a flag with a star inside and everybody felt silent and i knew that silence is the apparent silence that you better don't ask a question when we are that silent and i didn't understand but why that team it was another team i learned in school this is the team of the state of israel i mean i learned about that flag it could have been spain italy or switzerland for me there was no difference neither good or bad anyway
• 12:00 - 12:30 why my parents have this funnier reaction and then 10 days later on september the 4th 1972 the catastrophe happened the same team that so proudly parade into the stadium was brutally attacked by a group of palestinian terrorists that sneaked into the olympic village killed two israelis on the spot the remainder were taken hostage and the olympics came to a halt the german government dispatched
• 12:30 - 13:00 highest-ranking government officials among them the minister of interior affairs to negotiate face-to-face with the terrorists asking them begging him to release the israelis because the symbolism that jews were killed on german soil and hold hostage on german soil was something that was too difficult to bear terrorists refused a deal was struck to fly out the terrorists with the hostages to a military airport outside munich 18 hours later after the hostage taking in the
• 13:00 - 13:30 night time and they allegedly a german military jet would take them to a arab country of their choice within a exchange would have taken place between arab prisoners in israeli prison with the israeli hostages it never happened the german police tried to rescue the israeli athletes and a firefight ensued and behind the gates of the military airport in person for brooke you only heard fire and then saw explosions the night
• 13:30 - 14:00 night was lighted up by explosions the terrorists threw a hand grenade in a helicopter in which all the israelis were part of the israelis were tied and bound to the chairs and exploded and killed them all instantly the other helicopter they sprayed with machine gun fire and all died and the next day the picture in the newspaper that changed everything for me i had two helicopters on the tarmac one burned out with the charred remains of the israelis the other the israeli slumped over the seat with partly partially covered with linen
• 14:00 - 14:30 blood stained linen sheets and above a headline jews killed in germany again and asked myself what does that mean i was not naive i was 14 years old we learned in school about the nazi dictatorship we learned what the nazis did in germany creating a dictatorship that smashed the nascent weimar the public that they triggered world war ii and in world war ii 60 to 80 million people died among them were six million jews but we didn't learn about the holocaust yet as a unique event that led
• 14:30 - 15:00 to that murder and i asked my father like i always did my father was my my guide in my life and he was a very intelligent even though a harsh man and a very tough man but he dedicated his time to my education and actually stimulated my intellectual curiosity made me read newspapers every day from the age of 10 and so i ask him naturally said father what does this headline mean jews killed in germany again and he looked at me and said it means nothing it's over with them
• 15:00 - 15:30 in our house we don't talk about them i was perplexed it was a huge event something happened terrible happened and in school we started to talk about that and in school we started to talk about this event not only as it pertained to the murder of israelis but the symbolism the jews were killed on german soil and our teachers shared with us their own impression personal impression about the holocaust and for me and for my fellow
• 15:30 - 16:00 friends in the class was the first time that you heard about the extent the systematic murder of jews as a policy of the german government done by germans committed by germans to the intent to wipe out an entire people systematically not as a result of war systematic genocide and i was stunned not only that it happened i heard about it of course but what did my father do and his war bodies what these my the war hero who battled on every war front what did he do what did they do and ask him and i came home
• 16:00 - 16:30 and said father in school we learned about the holocaust what did you know about it i didn't dare to ask what did he do what did you know about it and he looked at me and said your teachers told you that it's all a lie they're communists it never happened and i knew that this is cannot be true that this was too many events happened there was this discrepancy but what my father pretended to tell me about the past glorification and what truly happened
• 16:30 - 17:00 and i started to read as much as i could about that time ferociously anything i could find in the library in bookstores and not only about the historicity of the events and what led to the events but also to find trying to find an answer what did my father do and i needed to find out and so i asked him trying to ask him questions and the only way to get question answers out of him was to use his weakness and one of this major weakness was that he was a raging alcoholic and as a child of an alcoholic parent i learned that you can use a soft
• 17:00 - 17:30 spot when he was not drunk yet you couldn't ask him questions because he was restless irritable and discontent looking for a drink when he was too drunk it was in la la land but iman is in the middle in the twilight zone i translate it now into shicker zone i made that up um you can ask if you can his tongue is looser and he will talk and so ask him and the answers came out in waves phase one um whatever happened already admitting
• 17:30 - 18:00 that something happened whatever happened we didn't do it it was the ss but not the vermont which was a blatant lie because i knew already too much about that time that the vermont was so deeply involved in the events that ranking german officers and among them i heard it from stauffenberg's widow but her husband told her that they were appalled not because they love jews they're not philosomatic but because this is not what the military is doing
• 18:00 - 18:30 this is against the morale this is will jeopardize the morale of soldiers and it was in the in the winter of 1940 for example the german commander of the um german forces in poland general brothers wrote a letter to adolf hitler complaining about the actions against civilians which would corrupt morale of course it was rebuffed so generals were talking we're speaking up everybody knew my father was lying second phase of answers well whatever
• 18:30 - 19:00 happened we had to do because we had to fight partisans rebels those with arms without wearing a uniform therefore you were allowed to kill them the rules of war didn't didn't apply geneva convention didn't apply just they don't want to die detract you but that's what hafiz assad says about the rebels in syria that they're all terrorists therefore we can kill them so i asked him the rhetoric question i said father how can it be that one million children were gassed their
• 19:00 - 19:30 bodies burnt and the ashes scattered they were fighting you babies little children fighting the mightiest army in the world it cannot be true you're either telling me a lie or you're trying to distort the truth to be of your mystic and then finally came the last phase and that was one evening i remembered very well he was almost drunk but he was still clear enough to tell me and he said burn sit down
• 19:30 - 20:00 you're struggling with this question which is not a struggle because you have to understand you're a german i tried to educate you as a german we have this we have to represent a certain race a purity of a certain race and we had the historic responsibility to clean up the mess that was left behind after so many generations the riff raff in the east we had to clean it up and we did it by putting them away in camps he never used the term concentration camp we never use the term murder never use the term gas and the only mistake that we made
• 20:00 - 20:30 is that we use the train capacity to transport the jews to the camps which we didn't have available to supply the troops in the front therefore we lost the war ergo the jews made us lose the war which is not an unusual argument i mean it sounds horrible for us it's not an unusual argument it was made actually after the first world war by national very national nationalistic germans that germany was lost the first world war because socialist and communist this was a code word for jews backstabbed the german
• 20:30 - 21:00 nation on the home front and therefore the home front was weakened and they lost the war so a similar argument he made that they had to redistract it and therefore they lost the war and this was for me not only appalling on a political and emotional level it was also how can my father the man i love the men i respected the man who guided me there's only one father in one's life can have such an attitude and can be so callously discarding the murder of so many millionaires and necessity these are not the values i can live by
• 21:00 - 21:30 these are not the values i can internalize what shall i follow and i was and i was moving away from him as much as i could physically emotionally and and spiritually and so to say bouncing off the wall and one of my teachers noticed that i was aimlessly drifting and he was a former jesuit priest and i admired him a lot because of his outspokenness and he sat me down one day and i said bernd something is wrong with you you're a great student but you were not behaving right
• 21:30 - 22:00 what happened is something wrong at home and i said i don't want to talk about it i said if you don't want to talk about your father and he pinpointed the problem right right there then i will talk about my father i lost my father in the war he never came back i grew up by myself with my mother and in a spiritual void and i became a priest to fill this this vacuum and uh and then i became a teacher to teach young germans like you to be better people so it would never happen again what happened and i learned to make amends
• 22:00 - 22:30 a very christian traditional motive you have to make amends too and ask him to whom shall i make amends to i said to jews meet jews and make amends i said i don't know jews i never met a jew in my life i said well i can put you together with jews and i try to to understand and make try to build a relationship it will help you it will help you to heal maybe help both of you and he put me together with a group of young israelis jews and arabs alike who came in the winter of 19 in the summer of 1978 to germany on an exchange
• 22:30 - 23:00 mission invited by the german government and in this political meeting of young people i was one of the few germans who participated and when young people get together i was at that time 19 years old and almost 20 and they were in the age of 18 19. the last thing you talk about is about what separates you you try to find out what makes you alike and i like the israeli girls a lot sorry to say that i'm not i'm not sorry um and
• 23:00 - 23:30 and i struck a friendship with the israeli girl and israeli girls it's a pg-rated event they're very straightforward and then they've talked a list and said if you like me why don't you visit me in israel and it was just a few days we knew each other i said absolutely i will do that because i was not only fascinated by her enough to admit but i was also fascinated by those people by those people that were like me there was nothing that separated us we were like alike and i wanted to find out where they're from so i made the decision to to visit them
• 23:30 - 24:00 her and one month later i scratched some money together had not had not much and uh took a hitchhike to italy and from italy in the park the harbor city of ancona port city of hong kong and the atrocity i took a boat not a cruise ship a ferry i don't recommend to repeat that and ship to the entire mediterranean for four days to haifa when i arrived she picked me up at the harbour i sent her a telex from pereos this was the time before google email texting that we
• 24:00 - 24:30 didn't have that and um she uh was overjoyed seeing me and took me immediately home with the with the munitv she took me to a to her parents apartment which was in never shannon in haifa which was a very small apartment and the parents were waiting for me warm people embracing me talking my rucksack off my shoulders you stay here speaking yiddish not much that i could understand putting my rucksack in the corner showed my father showed me the room and sat down if you must be hungry eat and they were
• 24:30 - 25:00 chatting with me and i had no idea what they were talking about i tried to understand and she tried to translate into english and her father looked at me and said suddenly after a few minutes if in german if you don't want if you don't understand us i can speak german and ask him how do you learn to speak german and he didn't say a word he just looked into my eye and rolled up the sleeve of his forearm and pointed to the number tattooed on his forearm and said in german in clear german is vine and lagan i was in the camps
• 25:00 - 25:30 and i knew what that meant and i wanted to sink in the ground and disappear and just make myself invisible and he said don't be afraid it was not you who did that but you as a young german have to understand what happened and do you i said i don't think i do and he said i will make you understand and um he was a very kind man but very determined to teach me and he took me to yat hashem in neo the holocaust memorial to introduce me to the concept of the shoah not the
• 25:30 - 26:00 holocaust which is a horrible word holocaust means the burned offering and this was by no means a burnt offering the showa it was a mass murder no religious ceremony to sacrifice people on the altar of whatever ideology and he introduced me to the showa as a catastrophe for his people and i was for the first time it really dawned on me what that means and i asked myself how could it happen
• 26:00 - 26:30 not only how could it happen but how can these people that were affected by this horrific catastrophe the worst catastrophe ever that happened in the history in in to that extent how can they maintain a spirit and their faith and move forward and building a country a fa rebuilding of families be rebuilt building a country being and referring to me as a person without any hate who are they and i wanted to find out about jews so on my way back to germany i was
• 26:30 - 27:00 taken by the thought how can i find more learn more about them because these are unique people and in bamberg in my hometown i was looking for a jewish community and there was actually one left small jewish community and i knocked one day at the glass door of a building that i found in downtown bamberg and there was this beautiful colored glass door inside the building and the buffalo glaston was a golden star and i knocked out a glass door and an old man opened up very reluctantly pointing the finger to the upstairs and said the dentist is
• 27:00 - 27:30 upstairs because we thought i wanted to go to the dentist was located in the second floor and said i don't want to go to the dentist i want to come to you and he almost slammed the door at me and then obviously i was not looking threatening he said what do you want and i said i want to go and learn more about jews i'm here for that and he looked at me and let me in i was probably thought i'm crazy and uh set me down in his office it was a dimly lit office if the curtains closed the window was closed it was a summer day no air condition the fan
• 27:30 - 28:00 didn't work very warm he took off his shirt his jacket had a short sleeved white shirt on very white very pale skin and a number tattooed on his forearm and i knew what that meant and i was staring at the number and he looked at me and said and yiddish does this is auschwitz what's wilston what do you want and um i told him i wanted to learn about jews and you look to say i can't tell you about jews i'm here the chair of the community i'm a russia killer we're a little community of some
• 28:00 - 28:30 holocaust survivors who stayed in banburg after the war i'm just holding together a bunch of alta cockers that's what he said and um and uh and then he looked at me said what do you want from me i said i want to learn about jews you look i said i have maybe an idea maybe a job for you i have to take care of this alta cockers and there's really a pain in the torches i don't want to do that anymore i'm too old i need a guy i need a shabbos going and he looked at me i said i don't know what that means i said well
• 28:30 - 29:00 in return for coming and helping me take care of everything i will teach you do we have a good shaft i said absolutely or does my ticket into the community and so every friday every saturday week by week month by month holiday by holiday i served as a shabby story which you can imagine what that means and i was not very well accepted by this group of as you referred to as the alta cockers they were old palmist jews who lived in germany after the war because they didn't want it to move anywhere
• 29:00 - 29:30 else and it got jobs provided by the occupation forces by the americans that germans couldn't take and established an existence there and they had the little world carved out in this in this community center and and they for them i was an intruder of course i was the intruder and um slowly i grew into this family of ch of choice and was slowly accepted and the closer i came to this community of choice um on my family of choice literally the more my family of origin pushed me away my father found out and he found out um
• 29:30 - 30:00 and put literally uh said an ultimatum i said it's either them or us and it came to a head on a christmas eve that which failed on a friday night i don't know what year it was when he christmas eve a big event in our household my mother set it up as a large family event which involved going to to the mass and holy mass and evening coming back home having a festively festive table uh carp which was symbolic eating
• 30:00 - 30:30 notion to eat fish a lentil soup and then going to the living room where the christmas tree with real candles was set up and my father was standing next to the christmas tree in his finest dark suit and nights cross around his neck always celebrating christmas by singing festive christmas hymns and i was not there and when i came home the next day um all hell broke loose and my mother crying my father yelling and he demanded to know where i am where i was and i said look
• 30:30 - 31:00 let's stop this greek tragedy because you may know where i was i was in temple and i want to tell you something else i won't sit on the same table with somebody who has blood on his hands and pretending to celebrate the birth of christ it's absolute hypocrisy i don't do that anymore i don't want to see this this cross around your neck and for to celebrate this holy christmas day i don't want to see that and he said you don't no problem house get out and so he kicked me out which was a little problem because i had no guilt and
• 31:00 - 31:30 and without guilt there's a little problem studying and i was already in medical school and itsak the chair of the jewish community noticed that i was under pressure that i was not the same not the same person and he observed me and he must have told others because suddenly one of the members of the jewish community approached me and gave me without saying anything he said here give me a hundred mark i said what why'd you give me a hundred mark i said take it
• 31:30 - 32:00 and i never got money from anybody so i went to it sucks that it's like aaron gave me 100 mark and it's like looked at me and says what did you do did you ask him for 200. i said no i did not i said you're too goyish and i didn't know what that mean as an it's like i don't really don't know what point you want to make i said you're too german sit down um you have to understand and you don't understand it yet we are all holocaust survivors and many of us don't have emotions left i had to rebuild my
• 32:00 - 32:30 emotions and my relationships carefully and aaron is one of them who couldn't and for him to express his emotions to use money and he wanted to tell you how much he appreciates of what you're doing because we know that you gave up something a lot so we want to help you accept it and from then on became the benjamin i was the benjamin and for the for the year after i remember i was taken in by everybody in a war in the warmest way that i never experienced before and one day unfortunately aaron died and
• 32:30 - 33:00 it's an an itzhak approached me he called me in the university and i was living in a dormitory and said you have to come home we need you and i came home and said what happened he said arun died and when we have a we have one man short and have a kadisha and we're too old to to do the job to wash him in the burial home and prepare the body and then bury him the next day we don't have the we need one more man and he looked at me and said i can't do it i'm not jewish and he said we decided you're one of us so you do it and um in this emotional ceremony
• 33:00 - 33:30 following by the burial and standing at the gravesite saying kaddish i said i i i'm one of them what i'm waiting for now i want to be a jew and i said it's a after ceremony i want to be a jew and it's like looked at me and said it's not a good idea and i told you that you can be a gert zedek and this is the this is wonderful and you can be the righteous in person but you don't have to sacrifice and be a jew you don't have to do that i said i want to i said well i can't talk
• 33:30 - 34:00 you out of it you're a stubborn guy but i know a rabbi in frankfurt who can and he told me he sent a letter to the rabbi in frankfort the rabbi at frankfurt was kind enough to receive me he was invited me for for a luncheon i came then frankfurt in the morning and he sat me down listened to my story very patient willing because i know my friend izak and bamberg to teach you anything you want to know but i will not convert germans i don't do that and i said well i accept that condition and for the next two years uh he taught
• 34:00 - 34:30 me anything i needed to know and every time i met him of course i asked him a neutrino said so what's new what's with the conversion is that no way i told you don't forget i will not this is not a conversion class and finally get relented after many times asking i said well i refer your case to the rabbinical court and they will decide but until you get there there are some commitments that you have to make or irreversible steps that you have to take regardless of the outcome that you later have in the refund of rabbinical court they may accept or reject your case and that involved of
• 34:30 - 35:00 course that little plastic surgery don't have to go into the details and uh and it had to be done according to halakha kosher way in in um in i think it was blood kosher um just kidding uh in a in switzerland in basel with a and then i had to do it two months later in a kosher between mets and friends but there was none available that time in germany and returned to germany in december uh in december 1986 after i graduated from
• 35:00 - 35:30 medical school at that time i had my appointment with the rabbinical court and underwent a formal conversion which was a very emotional process because it was not a quiz about my knowledge about judaism yes it was in the beginning i mean they asked me formal questions but it was more importantly and i remember this question that one rabbi asked me said you told us a lot and revealed a lot about what you know about judaism and your dedication but that's not enough
• 35:30 - 36:00 why does a german want to become a jew is it guilt that doesn't count is it conviction knowledge is not conviction tell us what what makes you tick what motivates you and i had to tell them from my heart what motivates me that i really wanted to become part of this family that was so much my family at that time and um they were returning after endless time for me i don't know how many minutes for a decision
• 36:00 - 36:30 uh after the and um i had to stand up they were reading the theodot guild in hebrew and then in german and i became at that day doppen abraham and was overwhelmed um came home to bamberg and said it's like i'm a jew and it's like i know word travel so what do you want to do i said well it's like i want actually i tell you honestly i want to go to israel and he looked at me and said i feared that that would happen because then we will lose you but why do you want to do that and i said i don't know where else to go
• 36:30 - 37:00 because i will be eventually alone and even living with you and being in this community there's not much i can do and i want to go to israel and so he helped me to obtain my visa through the law which i was qualified for through the law of return through the israeli embassy and the jewish agency and in january the 7th 1987 i made aliyah trying to see my parents again the night before because it told me to do so i was not
• 37:00 - 37:30 actually didn't think about doing it but it asked me that look if you want to be a jew you have to make me a promise that you live according to a jew and one of the things you can do right now to promise to demonstrate that you do it is to honor your parents and go home and say goodbye and i said goodbye to my mother at least my father refused seeing me and i left israel and became it began the talish as we say the clita went to a kibbutz six months there learned the hebrew in
• 37:30 - 38:00 an ulpan went to a year in the hospital to learn to get my israelites my german license up to israeli power got an israeli medical license in israel got obtained citizenship after a year and then was drafted to the military as a medical officer had to do the offices course and then i remember standing in the ceremony after the completion of the officers for and with all the sabres it suddenly hit me standing there in the uniform just in my tenant wings on the shoulder
• 38:00 - 38:30 and said oh my god if they find out that i am a german my father was a nazi they would kick me out of here they will never have respect for me i better don't tell anybody who i am tell them at least as possible about yourself lying which of course was a mistake because who will believe this story and who will respect me that i'm here in israeli officers with uh being assigned to a unit with young israeli soldiers and and my father was a nazi i mean
• 38:30 - 39:00 let's be silent and i didn't talk to anybody about it not to my friends not to my wife whom i met in israel and when we left israel in 1991 to come to the united states to continue my medical training my medical education here in my residency training i got a position here um life didn't work out the way i thought we split our marriage fell apart i had two children and my children looking for guidance of
• 39:00 - 39:30 course when they were meeting me and being together and we spent a lot of time always together and my son that was 14 years old his name is tal um and he asked me is it dead he asked me he wrote me a saba shirley out of the blue like children are and i said tal i don't know how to answer that question but i knew that i had to answer this question and i said well sit down let me tell you and i told him the question about the answer to the question gave him the answer the truth and honest answer when he listened to the story my son looked
• 39:30 - 40:00 at me and said dad that's a cool story well as a jewish youngster american growing up in america going to a jewish school my all my children have education from from from jewish kindergarten to uh to a high school degree and i went all to all the times in jewish schools and fill in in the morning going to temple and uh so um they had a family history day in school two weeks or three weeks after told them the story it was still taken by this by the story and then during the family history there everybody shared their
• 40:00 - 40:30 family history of course dating back to the temple um my son raised so i was told raised his hand and said and my grandfather was a famous nazi now if you do that in the jewish school i can guarantee you you'd run into trouble and um i was called into the principal's office with a rabbi present which was not a good sign with all due respect to the rabbis in the room and um i um i looked at him and said what what happened i thought my something terrible happened i said you look dr volshager you're respected member of our community
• 40:30 - 41:00 your son told us a very faith but your your father was a nazi and what's wrong with him does he need help is he confused you can give him help do you have psychologists on staff i said it's not my son it's me i told him the story and he doesn't know how to deal with that and probably he blurted it out and that's the story and the and the longer i talked about it and then i tried to rapidly tell to tell them the story the rabbi got more and more agitated and excited and said kola kavod yeah you have to tell the story to
• 41:00 - 41:30 everybody come with me to the class and said i can't i'm afraid i said no it's good for your soul when he gets out and he was right the first time i shared the story very reluctantly i've i noticed that the weight was starting to get lifted on my shoulder and when i did it again and again in the school the weight was lifted off my shoulder and i asked myself what happened in the circle of life that i opened so many years ago i never ever closed it i ran and ran and ran and i'm here and
• 41:30 - 42:00 i need to close the circle and continue living in a normal way by closing this chapter of my life and so i went back to germany with my son and we visited my parents at the only place where i knew i could visit them at the cemetery and found their grave ironically or tellingly on the cemetery in bamberg two to three rolls parallel to the wall that separates the jewish from the christian cemetery even today when you stand in front of their grave of course you see the wall and the behind the wall you see the
• 42:00 - 42:30 jewish gravestones almost defiantly casting the shadow to the other side and here my parents are lying and i told my son how telling these are your grandparents these are my parents they still live in the shadow of history they never stepped out of the shadow because in the in during life they have not didn't have the courage to face the the issue and in death they still live in the shadow and that what should teach you that you can never escape your responsibility either as a people or as a person specifically you have to face it head-on
• 42:30 - 43:00 and make amends to what you did wrong or trying to rectify what you did wrong and then do something right this is what our life can do at making a difference and as such i educated my children and raised my children and as such i when i'm at the privilege like i have today to speak to a esteemed group like you are that in every person's story there's a kernel of truth that should all help us and it's not about me
• 43:00 - 43:30 i live the life that many others have lived probably before me and each of us lives a unique life but each of us has to one day make born and ask what did we do with our lives somebody else will make this response for us but we during our lives we're being asked to do every day something to make it better better world tikkun alam is not an abstract word that we leave it up to politicians tikkun alum is something we do every day
• 43:30 - 44:00 hopefully we do every day and as such i'm not necessarily on a mission but as such i'm trying to convince others that we need to learn from the past not only to learn to hate which is the worst thing that can happen because i experienced hate what hate can do but to learn to love and embrace our fellow brothers and sisters around us learning to forgive too i forgave my
• 44:00 - 44:30 father for what he did but not forgive him for what they did against others specifically the jewish people but for him as individual i forgave him for what he didn't do to with me what he didn't tell me but not give him absolved him for all that he did in the past because i learned later on what that he was involved in horrible crimes but to understand that we have to can only move forward if you understand where the hatred are coming from and what hatred can do what i learned that hatred starts with the word
• 44:30 - 45:00 and these words of hatred that are being uttered silently and then loudly left unchallenged will be followed by deeds because people will act on it and this deeds forming habits and these habits lead into characters form characters and these characters form social norms and then you can explain that entire groups will take an attitude like the germans did towards the jews this doesn't absolve individual responsibility but it explains why an entire group can act if the entire group
• 45:00 - 45:30 condones it because it all started out with the words of hatred so where to start to stop hatred is to challenge those words to raise your voices if those words are being uttered or being written and have the courage to say it is wrong and this not only affect jews unfortunately often jews but not only jews but any words of hatred against anybody and any group to to sign to stop and listen and then
• 45:30 - 46:00 respond because we as people should know specifically i as a german know specifically what hatred can do and this is what we can learn from the schwa at least when i walked the killing fields of auschwitz together with my daughter and had to digest these horrors which are so present on these endless killing fields that they were created the dantis inferno the entry like rabbi lau said i remember him speaking in
• 46:00 - 46:30 in one of the arch of the living in auschwitz and he spoke about dante's infernally gates to hell that's what human beings can do but we can do also others we can learn from that close those gates and build a better world and hope we all will do that together so thank you very much for the privilege to listen and let me speak thank you if you like that video hit the subscribe button and notification bell below for
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