The Past Won't Shut Up: A Brief Tale of Two European Cities

Toward the end of the fourth book of the Torah, we read once again the long list of places that our ancestors stopped through on their way from Egypt to the promised land.  It’s a part of the Torah that gets us thinking about passing through different places, and a nice backdrop for me to reflect on a few of the places that Deanna and I passed through this summer.

But I’d like this to be more than a travel-log.  What emerged for me, especially in visiting some of the places in Europe that we saw recently, is a sense of the strong pull that the past exerts on the present.  Europe has strong resonance with the past.  You walk the streets of its cities and towns and you get pulled in, and pulled back, and it makes you wonder about how these places will continue to respond to current challenges.

So passing through inevitably leads to looking back as much as it leads to looking around.

And with no further intro, here’s my “tale of two cities."  I will in the future reflect on my time in Israel this summer, but today I’m going to take us to two of several cities that we visited in northern Europe - Copenhagen, Denmark and Berlin, Germany.

We spent a full day in Copenhagen on my birthday, actually.  Beautiful city, resonant with history but also in many ways future-oriented.  A city focused on reducing its collective carbon footprint – far more bicycles than cars in the city center, for example.  A city focused on broadening economic opportunity – universal health care coverage, fully subsidized university tuition. 

Inside the courtyard of Amalienborg Palace in Copenhagen 

We decided to take a walking tour.  The tour-guide was a young Danish man named Magnus who spoke excellent English and was very well-informed. 

Magnus shared a great deal about Danish history, weaving in insights about contemporary politics and social issues along the way.  I found myself thinking, I wonder if he is going to speak about the way the Danish leadership during World War II saved most of Denmark’s Jews?  Mind you, the group was extremely diverse – mostly from other Scandavian countries, Ukraine, France – we may possibly have been the only Jews present.  So as the tour went on, I was resigned to the fact that he wouldn’t necessarily mention a story that pertains only to a small portion of the population.

Toward the end of the tour, Magnus spoke about King Christian, who stood up to the Nazis during World War II, insisting that the Nazi flag that had been put up in the city square be removed.  And then he mentioned how, when the Nazis gave the order that the local Jewish citizens of Denmark had to wear the armbands with the star of David, the King placed one on his own arm, and urged all of the citizens of Denmark to wear them so that the Jews would not stick out.

I was pleased that he included that, and assumed that would be it.

We got to the very end of the tour, were sitting in a shaded area overlooking the main canal, and Magnus said, I want to conclude our tour with an amazing story.  And then he told, in great detail, the story of the rescue of Denmark’s Jews, which could not have taken place without the King, who not only took part in the extensive planning but personally funded a great deal of the operation.

That was the last part of the tour, and it was given the greatest emphasis.

I went up to Magnus afterward and told him that De and I are Jewish, and how much I appreciated the emphasis that he gave on this story, and how well it speaks of the Danish community during a time when virtually no other countries protected their Jewish citizens that way – to the contrary, many were only too happy to help the Nazis.

And he thanked me for my comment, but then he said, it’s disturbing to him that there is so much xenophobia in Denmark today, especially in light of Denmark’s past.  Perhaps you know that Denmark has one of the more restrictive naturalization processes in Europe today.  So on the one hand – Denmark has an open, progressive and brave past, and in many respects an open, progressive and brave current vibe and reality – but on the other hand, there is a fear that wide-scale immigration might negatively impact Denmark’s future. 

One city down, one to go.  The next day we visited Berlin.  Huge, bustling, changing moment by moment, building everywhere.  East Berlin is a real cultural hot spot, which is hard to believe.

Reichstag, Berlin

I’d been to Germany before – mostly southern Germany – but never to Berlin.

And it felt very strange.  Very laden with the past.  We were standing in front of the parliament, the Reichstag, which contains the words, Dem Deutschen Volk, "for the German people," carved in huge letters over the entrance.  And in my mind’s eye I saw the huge Nazi flags hanging down as they did before and during World War II.  I couldn’t shake the image.

Denmark constituted a pocket of resistance to the Nazi machine – and now here we were in Berlin, Germany, the epicenter of Nazi evil. 

And yet.  We spent 2 hours in the Jewish museum in Berlin.  A great museum, which describes Jewish customs and history with a focus on the history of Jews in Germany.

The most moving part of the museum were not the exhibits, however.  They were the hundreds of German twenty-somethings and teens who were there, individually and in guided groups, to see the museum. 

Berlin, you may know, has a monument to the Holocaust – it’s a strange, disturbing monument consisting of a random number of slabs that to me are evocative of coffins.

More significant than the content of the monument are its location and name.  It is located in prime Berlin real estate steps away from the main cultural and historical thoroughfare.  And it is called, with no attempt to dilute or obfuscate, the “Monument to the Murdered Jews of Europe.”

Germany has a liberal immigration policy and, as we know, is leading the way in providing a safe haven for refugees as well as asylum seekers.  Germany has been enriched by this policy, but it has also caused undeniable challenges.

I was thinking, as we left Berlin, how curious it is that over the years since World War II, Denmark became more circumspect while Germany became more open – in some ways, though I hesitate to oversimplify, a role reversal occurred.

What I find fascinating is how various countries in Europe, in dealing with contemporary issues, seem to be doing so with conscious or subconscious reference to their experience of the past – Denmark perhaps wary of the dangers of openness and Germany wary of the dangers of being intolerant and closed.

You can define yourself in consonance with the past or in opposition to the past, but generally speaking you can’t fully ignore the past.  It bursts forth or leaks out in unexpected ways.

Although much is changing rapidly in that region, which is truly at the crossroads of East and West, so much that is taking place has echoes of the past, raising larger questions about the parameters of freedom, the parameters of diversity, the parameters of government support, etc.

And while the United States is in many ways different from these European countries, we need to consider our past as well when we speak of public policy around issues of freedom and diversity.

I’ve been having a lot of fun reading the biography of Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow and let’s just say that despite many changes that have taken place, many essential questions remain the same.  And we will need to think clearly and carefully about our foundational vision and how we ought to apply it today.  My unambiguous hope is that we will do so in ways that maximize openness and freedom.  

The rabbis wanted to know why we needed to read, year after year, the names of all of the places the Israelites passed through and they tell a story about a father and his child who went on a journey.  When they finished the journey, they sat together and reminisced.  The child said, “oh yea, that’s where I had a headache.”  The father said, “Oh yea, that’s where we made a fire and told stories.” 

The revisiting of “where we passed through” is important to do personally.  This morning, I’ve tried to suggest that it’s important to do nationally and globally as well.

Oh yea, this is where we had the courage to risk our necks to save our citizens.  Oh yea, this is where we allowed a lunatic to take over our government and wreak havoc on the world.   Oh yea, this is where we decided to put up a monument that would keep us honest about our treacherous past.  Oh yea, this is where we allowed our fears to eclipse our capacity to do the right thing.

Sometimes we will conclude that we need more of the same.  Sometimes we will conclude that we need to act rather differently.

In our ongoing, global Tale of Multiple Cities, we will need to consider carefully where we’ve been and to take a sober look at where we want to be going.

Originally shared at Temple Israel of Great Neck, August 6, 2016