Survivors in Berlin fear for the future
The wartime generation, gathered for Chanukah in Berlin, reflect on fading memories of the Holocaust
ASSIA GORBAN remembers as if it were yesterday how she escaped with her mother from the Pechora concentration camp in Ukraine.
On Tuesday, Ms Gorban, 85, lit a candle on a menorah at the Jewish community centre in former West Berlin, her adopted home since 1992.
She was one of some 400 Holocaust survivors and their kin invited to the second annual “Holocaust Survivors’ Night”, sponsored by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
“It’s a joy to see the Chanukah menorahs all over Berlin — and also on the Great Wall of China,” she said. “We are all survivors.”
The event was inaugurated last year as a way to honour these eyewitnesses to history, and to celebrate life. Gatherings were held in Berlin, Jerusalem, Moscow and New York on the third night of Chanukah.
According to the Claims Conference, there are still some 400,000 survivors alive today. Since the organisation began negotiations with Germany in 1952, the German government has paid more than $80 billion in indemnification to individuals for suffering and losses resulting from persecution by the Nazis.
Tuesday’s event took place against the backdrop of rising antisemitism and falling awareness of the Holocaust.
Rüdiger Mahlo, the Claims Conference representative in Germany, told the gathering that recent polls have shown worrying trends.
“I’m always hearing from survivors that they are worried about what will happen after they die”, especially who will remember them, their lost families and the Holocaust itself, Mr Mahlo said. He added the Claims Conference was committed to ensuring that this history will not be forgotten, and that “hate and injustice will not gain a foothold.”
The Chanukah story of miracles resonated for Charlotte Knobloch, head of the Jewish community of Munich and Upper Bavaria, who was hidden by a Christian family in Germany during the war years.
Her own survival was nothing short of a wonder, she said, noting that antisemitism is on the rise again: “Taboos are being broken, on the street and even in the German parliament... And just as the Maccabees triumphed, we are also called upon to fight today.”
There are about 100,000 affiliated members of Jewish communities in Germany today, and perhaps another 100,000 non-affiliated Jews.
The vast majority emigrated from the former Soviet Union after the fall of the Berlin Wall nearly 30 years ago. The older community members in particular stick close together, cherishing Russian culture, food, music.
“We all came around 20 years ago,” said former Muscovite Alexander Vitzon, 90, tucking into his cabbage salad and rice pilaf with chicken and beef as his neighbor opened a pocket flask of vodka. “Life is very comfortable, very good in Berlin.”
He is vice president of the Klub Leningrad and describes himself as grateful for Germany’s support of the emigration of former Soviet Jews since German unification. But he will never forget the sound of German bombs falling on Moscow in 1941. He and his family fled eastward.
“I grew up with the Holocaust, it is part of my life,” said Roman Haller, who survived as an infant in hiding with his parents in Ukraine. “The next generation has a duty to remember, even if they did not experience it themselves.”
Noting the contributions of Jews to the arts and sciences, he said it was most important to remember that “we are not only victims. We have something to give.”
In her own way, Assia Gorban does just that. She will never forget how she and her mother escaped the camp, running through a forest and swamps, helped by strangers. They were liberated in Mogilev-Podolsky by the Soviet Army in March 1944.
Today, as a retired schoolteacher and an elected member of the Berlin Jewish community council, she regularly hosts meetings of former Soviet Jews like herself, who have been through so much. “We call ourselves ‘Phoenix from the
Ashes,’” she said.
Taboos are being broken even in parliament