My father and his family in Mayen 1934 My grandparents at home in Mayen My grandmother in America with her 3 American grandchildren,c. 1948 Mayen in the 1990's		Of Tears, Flames, and Love: A Jew Returns to Germany This is the (short) story of a post-Holocaust Jewish family pilgrimage to Mayen, a small town in Germany from which my father and his entire family emigrated in the 1930's to escape the mortal threat posed to them by Hitler's murderous regime. It is a story of goodness in the present, revealed in a context tainted by the evil of the past. And it is a story of my discovering a home, and a history, that I never knew I had. The historical trauma in the family background. My parents were German Jews, whose families were among the 300,000 who escaped from Nazi Germany in the 1930's before the noose was totally closed around their necks. My paternal grandfather Albert (1879-1941) was the spiritual head of the Jewish community of about 75 families that lived in the small town of Mayen (near Koblenz) in pre-Nazi Germany. There, although technically not a rabbi, he served the Jewish community for 28 years as its cantor and prayer leader, and as the sole teacher in the one-room, eight-grade Jewish elementary school, above which my family lived. My grandparents, Albert and Ida, chose to remain in Germany even after my father could have gotten them U.S. visas because they did not wish to become a financial burden on their four children, who had already emigrated to the U.S. between 1929 and 1937. For this reason, my grandparents were still in Germany on the infamous night of terror known as "Kristallnacht," loosely translated as "the night of broken glass" but now renamed "Reichspogromnacht," or "the night of the state pogrom" [a pogrom is a deadly assault or massacre aimed at an ethnic minority and often state-sponsored, an all too common phenomenon in Jewish history]. On that night between November 9 and 10, 1938, the Nazis organized a devastating nation-wide attack on Jewish synagogues, businesses, homes, and families, leaving hundreds of synagogues burnt to the ground, thousands of Jewish businesses and homes wantonly trashed, thousands of Jews assaulted and at least hundreds killed. Kristallnacht is now viewed by many as the beginning of the end, the opening assault of the most deadly and most evil phase of the Holocaust. And my grandparents were in Mayen on that night. From their second-story window, they would have been able to see the synagogue -- torched by Nazi thugs and totally consumed by the morning of November 10. I cannot even imagine how they endured that experience, or what came soon after: the jailing of almost all of Mayen's Jewish men and then their transport to Dachau, a concentration camp near Munich. A historical account tells us that they were released after two weeks, with a warning never to tell what they had endured in the camp and to get the hell out of Germany at the earliest possible moment. Soon after that unspeakably traumatic night, my grandparents at last secured their life-saving American visas, and sailed away forever from their homeland on January 17, 1939. My grandfather died a short two years later, most probably of a broken heart; my grandmother lived as a widow for almost 23 more years, and is buried in Israel on a beautiful hill overlooking Jerusalem. The hostile inheritance. My family was not as virulently anti-German as many other Jewish families, although my parents did boycott German goods for several decades after World War II. Although I traveled very briefly in Germany on my way to my junior year of study in France, I basically ignored Germany during my time abroad and for decades thereafter. I wasn't conscious of, or attentive to, how anti-German I was, and yet: if anyone would speak of a beautiful vacation they'd had or were planning in Germany, I would feel as if I were speaking with a Martian, a being from some other planet -- for how could anyone combine "Germany" and "beauty" in the same thought? If I would meet a German, I would sometimes speak with them in German for the fun of it, and perhaps inform them that my parents were born in Germany, but I would always add, "Sie waren aber deutsche Juden," that is, "But they were German Jews" -- just to make sure that they understood that the shared language and the shared homeland were not signs of a true kinship. On the contrary. A window opens into the past. In December 1997, I happened to learn from an Israeli cousin of mine (another grandchild of Albert and Ida) that every year on November 9, a group of Mayen Christians organize and participate in a Silent Walk and Memorial Service to honor the memory of those Mayen Jews who had not been able to emigrate, and who were deported in 1942 to their deaths in Nazi extermination camps. My first reaction was to recognize that these German Christians were honoring my grandfather Albert more than I ever had; since he died before my birth and my father spoke little of him, he was mostly just a stern face in some fading family photos. But then I realized how spiritually and personally transforming an experience it would be for me to see German Christians from "our" town remembering and honoring the Jews whom an earlier generation in that town had driven into exile or even death. I resolved to witness this with my own eyes -- and as soon as possible! Soon my Israeli cousin, my brother, and his 28-year-old daughter decided to join me in participating in the commemorative services in Mayen on the 60th anniversary of Kristallnacht on November 9, 1998. As we planned our trip, a powerful and redemptive image occurred to me: I saw that our coming to Mayen, as the third and fourth generations after Albert and Ida, would be like flowers breaking forth through the earth and blossoming, in a field that had been nothing but ashes. The wonder of a healing journey. And so we travelled from our respective hometowns in Chicago, New York, and Israel to Mayen for three amazing days in November 1998. There, on the 60th anniversary of Kristallnacht, we participated, along with 100-120 townspeople, in the commemorative Silent Walk and Memorial Service that the town's small but dedicated Christian-Jewish fellowship organization has been offering each year since 1989. At the ecumenical service in a Protestant church, the town´s four Christian clergymen spoke or read texts, and a children's choir sweetly sang four Jewish songs in German. In the central section of the service, my Israeli cousin spoke movingly and powerfully in Hebrew, letting this ancient language of the Jews ring out through the hall, as she courageously expressed her deeply ambivalent feelings on returning to Mayen, the town that had persecuted her mother and her grandparents. After translating her talk, my musician brother contributed an exquisitely suitable, deeply moving piano piece by Brahms. I then addressed the gathering in German, which serendipitously permitted me to evoke our historic connectedness -- a connectedness whose depth I had never realized before this visit. This is what I told them: REMARKS AT THE MEMORIAL SERVICE ON THE 60TH ANNIVERSARY OF KRISTALLNACHT NOVEMBER 9, 1998 Mayen, Germany I wish to speak tonight of tears, of flames, and of love. First, let me speak of my family's tears. On 10 November 1918, eighty years ago almost to the day, as World War I was about to end in the collapse and surrender of the German Army, my patriotic German grandmother Ida wrote to her beloved husband Albert who was serving on the German front. She wrote: "I weep bitter tears at such national misfortune, and how will it come out for us personally? Everything now is collapsing.. My thoughts whirl around in my head in wild chaos." Just 20 years later came the night of terror that we now call Reichspogromnacht, or Reichskristallnacht, on 9 November 1938... How bitter must her tears have been on that night ... as her beloved synagogue -- and her future in her native land -- was consumed in unholy flames! And how many more bitter tears were shed by Jewish families throughout Germany, as the Nazi noose closed tighter and tighter around them, and around all of European Jewry. But this time, it seems, the Jews were left to weep alone. And now, another 60 years have passed, and we are in 1998. You might be surprised to learn how many tears I have shed as this trip approached. Were these tears bitter like my grandmother's? Actually, I would say they were -- thank God -- of another kind. My tears included tears of wonder and amazement at the rich blessing that God has given us, the grandchildren and greatgrandchild of Albert and Ida, in permitting us to come together here in Mayen to remember our grandparents and the entire Jewish community of Mayen on this solemn occasion. My tears have also flowed in gratitude to [the members of the Christian-Jewish Fellowship Organization] who have so movingly, so devotedly created this vehicle for all of us to express what is otherwise almost inexpressible. And now let me speak of flames. On this night we remember the flames that consumed hundreds of synagogues throughout Germany, the flames that destroyed not only those precious temples of God but also the last remaining hopes in the hearts of all those Jews throughout Europe who thought that things could not get any worse. And we also remember the flames of hatred that turned the hearts of the haters, and the bodies of millions of their victims, to ashes -- the flames of hatred that burned across all of Europe and indeed much of the world in those terrible years of World War II. But on this night, especially on this night, we must also remember a different kind of flame: a flame that is far quieter, more subtle, even invisible, but infinitely more important in the lives of each one of us. On this night I invite you to remember the eternal flame of God's presence that burns in the heart of each of His children, of each one of us. It is this invisible flame which is represented in synagogues all around the world, where an eternal flame, a "Ner Tamid," burns day and night to symbolize the eternal presence of God in our lives. These eternal flames remind us that God's light never goes out of the world. May we always remember to dedicate ourselves to acting in such a way that this light may grow and grow in our hearts, in our words, and in our actions. And now, let me turn from tears and flames to speak of love. As my [family] and I explore our family history in greater and greater depth, we now are able to see very clearly just how much this couple, Albert and Ida, triumphed over Hitler -- not merely because they managed to escape from Germany in the months following Kristallnacht, but especially because they brought with them, and left behind to all of us, a priceless legacy of love. Every one of their four children -- Max, Hans, Ruth, and Walter -- despite a life of great personal struggle and sacrifice in their undeserved exile from their homeland, grew up not as embittered souls but as sweet, loving, kind [human beings] who were by nature generous and even self-sacrificing. I give their parents, Albert and Ida, our grandparents, enormous credit for this accomplishment. And all of us children of those four remain forever in their debt for passing on to us this precious legacy of a loving and a generous heart -- which we are committed to passing on to the next generation -- with generous interest! In conclusion, I want to emphasize that all of us share the responsibility to always remember both the ocean of tears and the whirlwind of flames that have forever marked this period of Jewish history and of European history. But at the same time, let us never forget that eternal flame of love that God has placed in our hearts, the love that our parents and grandparents have passed down to us, the love that God sends us in so many forms throughout our lives, and finally, the gift of our own love that we can offer to others on both ordinary occasions -- and extraordinary occasions, such as this one. You know, I came here today NOT because I was eager to remember the evil that was done here 60 years ago but because I was eager to witness the good that all of you are doing here today. And so tonight, I want to acknowledge, and honor, the sparks of divine love so evident in this service here tonight, and to thank you for giving me the opportunity to add my own spark to yours. May the flames of love that we have kindled here tonight, as we honor the lost Jewish community of Mayen, forever outshine the terrible flames that burnt on this night 60 years ago.    Naomi