First paper for class!

Lynne Foster Shifriss
F 358 – Prof. Judah Cohen
18 October 2006


Loss of memories, loss of redemption


Recent news stories about the massacre of the Amish schoolgirls in Pennsylvania shocked me. Unfortunately, the murders themselves did not shock me; we have grown too familiar with random, unexplainable violence in this country. Instead, the reaction of the Amish shocked me. Forgive the killer? Attend his funeral? Plow down the schoolhouse where the massacre took place; make that field into a pasture. The quick forgiveness and the physical erasure of the murder site seem too glib to me. How can healing take place without mourning first? How can forgiveness take place without apology, without asking for forgiveness? And, at the heart of the matter in my thoughts – how can understanding take place when the memory is erased?

Jews, I feel, are particularly good at memories: Stories are told and re-told. The whole Passover dinner is the communal re-telling of a story in which people are encouraged to engage, use their imaginations, ask questions. History is real to Jews. Why is he fasting? Why, it’s the anniversary of when the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed. Why are you staying up late studying Torah? It’s the anniversary of the day that God gave Moses the Ten Commandments! And so on.

Thinking about how important memory is within the Jewish culture makes me wonder – what happens in a family when there is an attempt to erase painful memories? What happens when a family suddenly becomes something that it has not been in the past?

Many Jewish families, faced with the horror, the terror of the Nazi onslaught, chose to forget – to try to erase – their Judaism. What happens to their children when, one or two generations later, they find out that their assumptions about the past are a lie?

Following are two very different reactions to finding out about hidden Jewish ancestry.

Sen. George Allen, R-Va., faces a serious election challenge this fall after his poor handling of the revelation this summer that his mother is a member of a prominent Tunisian Jewish family. Allen was confronted with the facts after reporters started digging following a reported racial slur uttered by Allen.

Mr. Allen, who is Presbyterian, grew angry at a reporter's question about whether his mother had been born Jewish. Mr. Allen later said that after the question came up, his mother told him for the first time that her family was indeed Jewish. His subsequent statements about the matter -- attesting that he still ate ham sandwiches, for example -- appeared awkward, even to fellow Republicans.

(Kirkpatrick, David D. “THE 2006 CAMPAIGN; 2 Ex-Acquaintances of Senator Allen Say He Used Slurs,“ New York Times, Sept. 26, 2006)


I wondered, as I am sure many people did, why Sen. Allen referred to a question on his Jewish ancestry as “reprehensible?” He stated that in years gone by, when his mother was asked about her ancestry, she would say “Who cares about that?” (“Exclusive interview with Sen. George Allen on his Jewish ancestry,” WAVY TV, republished on MSNBC.com.) Obviously, Allen did care -- a man who had built his political reputation on conservative views (and who has even been accused by former college acquaintances of uttering racial slurs) (New York Times, Sept. 26, 2006) evidently felt he had a lot to lose with some constituents by the truth of his ancestry coming out.

In contrast, the reaction of Kati Marton, a writer, was to want to explore her Jewish ancestry in depth. Marton found out the truth about her family’s Jewish ancestry when, as she worked on a book about Raoul Wallenberg (a Swedish diplomat who saved thousands of Hungarian Jews from Adolph Eichmann’s scourage in 1944) (Pogrebin, Abigail. Chapter on Kati Marton, “Stars of David,” Random House, 2005) – her interviewee remarked that Wallenberg “arrived too late for your grandparents.” (Her grandparents died at Auschwitz.)

Marton met the shocking news of her parents’ deception about their past and about the death of her grandparents with honesty and courage. She shared what she knew with her family, including her children. She has addressed Jewish topics in some of her writing. In fact, Marton said that her past had become an obsession: “I wanted details; I wanted to fill in. I had, by then, given up my childhood Catholicism, and I loved the historic aspects of Judaism and the association with so many people I admired.” (“Stars of David”)

Marton said that her parents admitted they erred in withholding the truth: “My mother has. She said, ‘We were wrong. Our motives were good. But we were wrong.’”

In facing her past and trying to understand the forces which drove her parents to want to give up their Jewish identities, Marton traveled to Miskolc, Hungary, in 2002. She wanted to see for herself the place from which her grandparents had been deported – never to return from Auschwitz: “They were marched to the ghetto, then to the brickworks and on to the Auschwitz-bound wagons. Neighbors took their worldly goods. What personal property remained was transported to the synagogue, which was used as a warehouse for stolen Jewish property.” (Marton, Kati. “A Town’s Hidden Memory,” New York Times, July 21, 2002.)

But Marton had trouble even finding the synagogue.

The guidebooks did not mention its existence.

Local residents told her they never heard of any synagogue.

Finally, Marton found it – at the end of a “sorry, ugly paved square with a church well described and marked in all the guidebooks.” (NYT, July 21, 2002) The caretaker did not even want to open the gate for Marton. Hidden behind tall concrete barriers, inside a padlocked gate, the synagogue had memorial plaques to those killed inside, where nobody could see them.

I think that in visiting Miskolc, Marton was seeking to understand and to find peace. But what she found was that a town, like a person, which hides the past cannot be peaceful: “The town of Miskolc has buried its past and so cannot expect redemption.” (NYT, July 21, 2002)

There are stories which must be shared. Compassion, understanding, greater closeness can result. When the past is hidden, repressed, covered with shame and silence, healing cannot take place.

As Marton concluded after her time spent in Miskolc: “Those living in a dark place, ignorant of their own history, are the ones at risk.” (NYT, July 21, 2002)