Revelation

This morning we went to the Jewish cemetery at Schonhauser Alle and it differed significantly from the cemetery we visited the day before. Yesterday's was where Moses Mendelsohn was buried. That cemetery was not well preserved and even though it was a Jewish cemetery, it had been ruined and vandalized several times - also since there were so many bodies and dead people - not necessarily Jews during WWII they just needed to bury people to avoid the spread of diseases. So they buried many people in mass graves. Wild grass and weeds had grown throughout. The trees inside were not healthy, clearly diseased. It was striking at first at how unhealthy the ground was there, but I talked about it with Deborah and she pointed out clearly that people had been buried without coffins and the ecosystem was not right. Our guide, Carolyn, said that the Jewish community maintains it, but there really is not enough money to preserve it adequately.

Visiting the cemetery at Schonhauser Alle was strikingly different. This was the Jewish community's cemetery starting in the 1600's and became full in the 1880's. These were people who lead full-fledged thriving lives in Germany long before the Holocaust. This cemetery was quite beautiful. It was full of rows of graves with ivy flowing all over. Clearly very overgrown, but that added to its beauty. I was really moved with how beautiful it was. Moreover, it made me realize that it is so important to still go to Germany.

Two people in my life, one in her 70's and the other in her 90's, had a strong feeling that they could never go to Germany. We need to keep and remember the Jews who lived and died somewhat normal lives just as we remember those who died in the Holocaust. A life is a life and we cannot allow memorializing the Holocaust and the bitterness of Germany's past to stop us from remembering the beauty of those who came before. The day before, we visited the Neue Synagogue and learned about the archives that have been kept on the Jewish community from generations leading up to the Holocaust. Seeing that this vast archive of records exists on such an organized level and that they are actively working with other archives to add to the story - to complement what they know. Piece by piece they are trying to reconstruct Jewish life.