Notes from Our Morning

I will clean this up later, and add photos too, but don't want to forget anything.

We started at Potsdam Square. It was all rebuilt as it was destroyed in WWII and was no man's land in Cold War. All rebuilt in last 10+ years. Wall went through it as per cobblestones. (We were there on our own yesterday on our way to the Tiergarden.)

There are many memorials to people who died trying to escape East Berlin, some with crosses.

The rebuilt Jewish community is imported mainly from Eastern Europe including Russia.

We stopped at Palais Ephraim. There were "Court Jews" loyal to the monarch, often bankers. The community depended on the goodwill of the king as Jews were not citizens until after the French Revolution. The building was totally destroyed but it was rebuilt and is now a museum.

Lapidarium is a museum of tombstones. That is where we were yesterday.

We saw a library focusing on victims of Stalinism in a neighbourhood reconstructed to look how it was in 1700's with cobblestone streets. We went to Lessing house. The name of the area is Nikolaiviertel.

Berlin is a Slavic word meaning in between the swaps of wet areas. The bear connotation actually is a mistake but there are lots of bears including a statue here. We saw the old seal of city of the united city and St. Nicholas Church. It is Lutheran and was tolerated by rulers to get rid of Rome.

The old Jewish area was outside the medieval city walls as it was cheaper than within city walls. Jews were allowed to live within the walls as of 1671 but you paid extra taxes if Jewish.

There is lots of construction in the old East Berlin where there was a ton (or more) of wartime rubble that was neglected in Communism. Now even the precast housing put up by the Communists also is coming down.

We saw the kosher grocery and Orthodox area.

The place we saw the first night near our hotel was a JCC and is run by Chabad.

There are armed guards outside the Orthodox centre. There are 200,000 Jews now instead of only 20,000.

The big synagogue became reform in 1869 and we saw Adath Israel as a breakaway synagogue. This is now a functioning synagogue. In 1969 a law was passed after an attempted attack by a far left terrorist group re: the liberation of Palestine-i t was an attempted bombing of a community centre-federal law requires police to guard all Jewish institutions.

German Zionists didn't so much want to build Israel as get Eastern European Jews in Berlin to go there. Kids-many left here as easier to get a single visa than a family one. But Ahawah home for children got many kids out before the war.

There are small brass plates on sidewalks outside homes where deported people lived. 10,000 plaques. 55,000 Berlin Jews were deported starting October 1941.

We saw an old dance hall that still is open.

We came upon a bakery from pre-Nazi period and now owned by a daughter. Baker ordered to bake bread for those being collected but made more than paid to bake so people had more. Also made Shabbat challah. Survived Communist period even when no private property.

We had a snack-Kim had an apple rhubarb thing and I had a raisin danish type thing. Alex had a cheesecake and poppy seed square. All were excellent. It is one of the few independent bakeries not part of a franchise.

30% of the population in the area was Jewish pre-war but now it isn't at all.

The Catholic hospital showed solidarity, gave out food and hid people. It still is a Catholic hospital. They didn't save a ton of people but the act of solidarity was important and also shows that not all Germans supported the Nazis.

There are still visible bullet holes in some houses from WWII from when the Red Army was fighting the Nazis-at the end of the war many kids were sacrificed by being armed as civilians.

We looked at the outside of today's Jewish high school. Re-opened in 1994 and now co-ed and not just for boys. Quiet today as summer vacation. Living community among the memorials. 450 kids most of whom are Jewish and they do accept others. Private from E120 per month only. German curriculum but have Hebrew too.

Mendelsohn founded the Jewish school in 1774 as first Jewish school to be more than religious education but secular/modern like math. Actually the first of its kind in Prussia altogether.

We saw the site of former home for aged but it has been turned into a memorial site (see photo of the sculpture of many people) as it became a collection site for deportation. "Never Forget, Be Aware of the War, Keep the Peace" plaque put up by East Germans. One of first plaques put up by East Germans-only in 1988, 50 years after Kristallnacht. First time Jews singled out and not just part of persecuted non-fascists. Perhaps just an attempt to use Jews to look reformist so as to attract foreign investment and save the state.

The building was destroyed by shell with middle missing. Plaques on side to mark names of those killed.

We visited the spot of the old cemetery. The Nazis leveled it but bodies are still buried without tombstones. Was already closed for new burials as it was full.

Regina Jonas was the first female rabbi and was ordained in 1935 in the nearby synagogue. She was deported to Theresienstadt (Terezin in Czech) and then to Auschwitz where she was murdered. She was a rabbi in Theresienstadt. She didn't leave because she lived with her sick mother.

New synagogue: front is a museum and memorial but no prayer hall in it anymore. It wasn't destroyed on Kristallnacht. There was a memorial plaque affixed during the centennial year of 1966 so the Communists put it up. They don't mention that it was the Communists who removed the prayer hall in 1958. Was a reform shul. There was a security check to enter and an admission fee. It had space for 3,000 people to serve the entire community and its various subsets even though no one congregation was that big. It was a symbol that Jews were part of the country.

They started renovating in 1989 as on the 50th anniversary of Kristallnacht there was an effort to remember. They found artifacts when they removed concrete from the war, including the eternal light.

The renovation isn't a complete rebuild as they wanted some of the destruction to be visible.

The synagogue wasn't destroyed on Kristallnacht. Krutzfeld was a police officer who received a warning a day beforehand that there would be a pogrom and Himmler told police not to intervene. The SS did most of the damage and didn't wear uniforms to make it look like a spontaneous people's uprising. Krutzfeld made sure nothing would take place in the synagogue that day. He saw the SS break in and start a fire and was able to find other police and he kicked out the SS. He wasn't arrested but had to resign his post in the area. He still received a letter signed by Hitler thanking him for his service to the German people and his pension. As Alex says, he really did provide a service to the German people which included Jews.

Question: who is responsible for the atrocities in WWII-the Nazis of Germans generally? This is a very difficult question. But in Krutzfeld's case there is an example where defying the Nazis didn't lead to imprisonment or worse, which both shows that not all Germans followed the Nazis but also that defying the Nazis may not have been as risky as some say. Krutzfeld didn't talk about his role at all.

A tour group from Israel is now visiting and the noise is deafening so it is hard to hear Alex. I thought we weren't allowed to take photos but they are so maybe I should?

As the war broke out the dome had to be painted black for air raid camouflage reasons but the request was made on Rosh Hashanah for political reasons.
The back of the synagogue shows columns outside that supported the original prayer hall, now destroyed. This area is now a memorial. There is a sports hall behind the site now used by the Jewish high school that we saw earlier.

There are street signs on the floor relating the objects displayed to their original location in the quarter.

Paradoxically after the Nazis came to power there was a revival of the community as it was what was available and could be trusted. Many assimilated Jews became Jewish in terms of identity, if not religion, at this time. The Nazis didn't mind this development as they wanted full segregation.

The Jewish museum was opened only four days before Hitler came to power and then was closed after Kristallnacht.

There is a photo of the outdoor 1939 Purim parade and there are visible police guards. We can't tell why police were there-to guard against attacks against children or to monitor and police the parade?

That's it for now.