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N OTHER LANDS
Jews in
Germany
Traveling through Germany recently, Mrs. Susman of
Pittsburg, Recording Secretary of the National Council of
Jewish Women, studied, observed and questioned at ivill.
The result is an unforgettable picture of Germany's crip
pled little Jewish community against the conflicting back
ground of a nation emerging from Nazism into democracy.
Established 1925
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By MRS. MILTON K. SUSMAN
The Federal Republic of Ger
many, composed of 9 states (Laen-
der) in West Germany, each year
for the past few years has in
vited 50 to 60 American of vary
ing interest and fields, for a
month’s study tour of West Ger
many. Recently, for the first time,
a Jewish group was included in
the church group, consisting of
Rabbi Leon Fram of Detroit,
Isaac Franck, Executive Director
of the Jewish Community Coun
cil of Greater Washington, D. C.,
and me.
My two travelling companions
and I were in Bonn, East and
West Berlin, Frankfurt/Main,
Munich, Hamburg and Dusseldorf.
There were no daily schedules ar
ranged for us so we were at lib
erty to see, meet and talk with
anyone, from any segment of
society we wished. We saw Jews
and non-Jews, business men, edu
cators, students, religious leaders,
sociologists, economists, political
leaders, social welfare leaders—in
fact, we observed everybody and
everything so far as time would
permit.
One can not help but be impress
ed with the recovery and strides
West Germany has made. Here
was a country, completely devast
ated by bombing, artillery fire
and street fighting, its largest
cities, for the most part, reduced
to rubble, its industries crippled.
Its people were impoverished and
afflicted by guilt and shame. Yet
in the short space of 12 years, one
has to look hard in some cities for
evidence of war. Through Ameri
can aid, its relief from burden
some defense budgets that other
nations have had to bear, and its
own diligence and inventiveness,
West Germany has pulled itself
out of shambles to a fabulous
prosperity.
Today, there are no physical
evidences of National Socialism
or Hitler, except in Berlin where
one can see the bombed bunker
where Hitler died. The concentra
tion camps of Dachau and Bergen-
Belsen which I visited are being
maintained but as reminders and
memorials. The inscription on a
statue of an emaciated man erect
ed in the center of Dachau read
“To the dead, a memorial; to the
living, a warning.”
The youth of Germany were
quite disillusioned by Nazism and
the Nazi leaders as they were ex
posed in the Nuremberg War
Crime Trials. The “Diary of Anne
Frank” has made a great impres
sion on the Germans, especially
the young. They have read, they
have heard about the concentra
tion camps, about the millions,
both Jews and political opponents
of Hitler, who were killed. But
“The Diary” has personalized, has
humanized those years of horror,
bestiality and brutality from 1933
to 1945. Young Germans at present
are rejecting nationalism and the
isolation which they feel quite
keenly. They are most eager to
know other peoples, other coun
tries, other mores. They are read
ing a great deal today, for again,
for the first time in many years
in Germany, books of all coun
tries are available in cheap edi
tions. Theatres playing foreign
plays are crowded. But, as mem
bers of the Cultural Affairs Com
mittee of the Bundestag told us,
youth is also becoming very
materialistic, wants cars, large
salaries, wants the “flesh-pots,”
and is displaying greater selfish
ness.
There is a Jewish community
in Germany today, albeit a small
one. In 1933, there were 600,000
Jews in Germany. In 1957, there
are about 20,000. After the war,
a few hundred came out of hid
ing where they had been sheltered
and protected by Christians, a
few thousand from concentration
camps who had managed to sur
vive, and about 10,000, chiefly
Eastern European Jews, from the
Displaced Persons Camps when
they were abandoned in the 1950s.
These were people who had
neither the ability nor the stami
na to go to other countries. In
1953, the newly constituted Fed
eral Republic of Germany passed
a “Wiedergutmachung” law which
is unique in history. For the first
time, victims of persecution, poli
tical, racial and religious, are re
ceiving indemnification not only
for property and business which
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