Some German Jews who had managed to leave Germany before or during the Nazi period returned there after 1945. Who are, who were these people, and why did they come back? How did they experience living in Germany once more? For certain Jews living elsewhere, Germany (like Poland and Austria) was and remains a “taboo” country: they refuse to travel there or to buy goods originating from it. Many people find it hard to understand why Jews would go and live in Germany after the Shoah, and why Jews who had been fortunate enough to leave Germany alive would choose to return precisely there, of all the possible places on earth.
My own family was among those who went back to Germany after emigrating, and I spent most of my life in that country. Although I do not propose to recount my family’s history, that history lies in the background of much of my thinking. After all, it is one of the questions that have dominated my life. And I nonetheless believe that a pragmatic approach to the reasons why Jews returned to Germany would illuminate our understanding. After all, we all have to make decisions, sometimes decisions of very great importance, without the benefit of hindsight, trying to weigh needs against desires, feelings against necessities — our own and those of our families.
I know of only one study of the population of Jews who returned to Germany after the Second World War. Harry Maòr devoted a chapter of his dissertation to the Jewish communities in Germany, and he completed it in 1960 with a study of those who had returned there1. In my article I shall first summarize his research. I know of no other work, in the last fifty years, that has examined this population as a whole. That is why I draw on personal testimonies, on informal conversations with other Jews whose families returned to Germany or who returned themselves, as well as on my own experience.
I have always been struck by the fact that the life stories of Shoah survivors — I also count those who emigrated as survivors — are extremely complex. Even a brief summary of their biographies presents, in life-or-death situations, coincidences that seem incredible and decisions that may appear strange today but seemed reasonable, or at least good enough, at the time. The people who chose to return to Germany were a very diverse group — in their professions, their relationship to politics, the way they left Germany, their lives in exile. It is therefore not surprising that their reasons for returning to Germany (their expectations, their feelings about living in the country they had fled to save their lives) were also very diverse.
In his dissertation, entitled La reconstruction des communautés juives en Allemagne depuis 1945 (The reconstruction of the Jewish communities in Germany since 1945), Harry Maòr studied the group of those who had returned to Germany as one of the many groups of Jews living in that country. It is important to remember that he focused on those who belonged to the organized Jewish communities and that he did not study the others. One can only hypothesize about their number, their characteristics, and their points of view then and now.
Since Maòr’s work was completed in 1960, it is limited to the first fifteen years that followed the Second World War. The German Jews who had left and returned numbered, in 1959, 9,000 out of a community of 25,000, or 36%. And they were fewer than 4% of the 270,000 Jews who had emigrated2. Two-thirds of Germany’s Jews lived in the main cities, although there were no fewer than 80 communities scattered across the whole country, some of them very small. The majority of German Jews who returned also settled in the large cities. In the first seven years, 70% of them had settled in five communities: Berlin and Hamburg, where they made up about 10% of the community, Düsseldorf and Cologne (28%), Saarbrücken (88%). In the following seven years, about 7,000 more Jews returned. It is not known how many Jews returned to the cities where they had lived before the war, nor how many chose to settle elsewhere.
Some returned to their city of origin, others settled elsewhere. One reason for this choice was the attempt to avoid the memory of what had happened to them. Some returned to larger cities for fear of drawing attention as Jews or as foreigners in smaller towns. For others, the reason behind the choice of place was the presence of a Jewish retirement home for the elderly. In all, Jews returned from 36 countries to which they had emigrated. Many were old, and there were few children and young people among them. Many were liberal in their religious leanings, and religious life did not play a large role for them. It was fairly common for their spouse not to be Jewish.
The Association of German Refugees from Shanghai represented about 7,000 people, of whom 2,500 wished to return to Germany. They insisted that, as recognized victims of fascism, they had the right to return to their country. It was only after much effort that the authorities allowed them to come back, in 1947 (subsequently, some of them left Germany again). This was the only group of refugees to return to Germany as a group and to regard itself as such after their return, even though they lived in different places. Most of those who returned did not see themselves as part of a “movement” with a common ideology or goal. Under these circumstances, what then were the reasons for their return?
It is likely that personal reasons were dominant, and they were different for each one. As I said earlier, many of them were elderly and were returning to Germany to spend their retirement there. For them, going to Germany did not constitute a “fresh start.” Financial reasons played an important role, especially for those who had lost most or all of their property, or who had difficulty making a living, for whatever reason, and who could not rely on the help of other family members — insofar as those had survived. The pensions they received allowed them to have a financially better life in Germany. In 1956, the amendment to the Federal Act for the Compensation of Victims of Nazism granted 6,000 marks (the equivalent of several months’ salary) as immediate aid to Jews settling in Germany (this sum was paid retroactively to those who had returned before 1956). Lawyers came back to Germany to work in the field of compensation. A small number of Jews also came to Germany with relief organizations, immediately after the war, in order to help other Jews. Maòr noted that in the many interviews conducted with those who had returned to Germany, there was no trace of disappointment or bitterness that might have been interpreted as the cause of their return, and that, consequently, they had no great hopes or expectations. He observed, however, that those returning from Israel, in particular, tried to rationalize their decision.
Even if some of those who returned, like those from Shanghai, insisted on their right of return, and even if an actor and director such as Fritz Korner is said to have made the following declaration: “When the causes of my exile ceased to exist, I returned from my exile,” many of these returning Jews were ambivalent about living in Germany after the Shoah. Some of them did not regard their return as permanent (and indeed they left Germany again). Jewish public opinion abroad was strongly opposed to this return and to the idea that Jews might live in Germany. There were conflicts within families and broken friendships over this question, and some of those who went back made the journey to Germany without telling their relatives that they intended to stay. It is likely that some of them made a trip to Germany for a short period, to see whether staying there was a realistic option. They put off making a more definitive decision.
Jewish organizations abroad regarded Germany as a “taboo” country and the return as a sacrilege. Some even held that one should have no social ties with Germans. This position, widely disseminated in the media, was the majority view among Jews. That is why those who decided to return to Germany could not count on the support of Jews outside it. Moreover, the Jewish community of Germany was at the time very busy, indeed overwhelmed, with helping the Jews who had survived and who remained in Germany. The vision of Germany as the place of the devil was transferred onto the Jews who lived there, who were sometimes branded “Nazis” by other Jews.
Some Jews were warmly welcomed in the first years following the Second World War, and they were supported by non-Jews. A few years later, the mood had changed, the welcome was less warm, and there was less support. While a small portion of Germans were pained by what the German people had done and tried to make amends, the majority showed no interest at all in the Jews or in their resettlement.
Maòr concludes his study in 1960 with the observation that the return of Jews to Germany had visibly come to a halt.
What can we say fifty years later? Apart from Maòr’s work, research on the Jews who returned to Germany after the Shoah has focused on individuals or particular groups, above all students, writers, artists, politicians, and people of that sort3. A thorough history of those who were not public figures remains to be written4. I have found no statistics on the number of Jews who returned to Germany after 1960, so I cannot confirm Maòr’s main observations.
Research into the reasons for the return of Jews to Germany has shown that they were above all personal. The following reasons were mentioned: poor health, old age, language problems, lack of surviving family abroad, mixed marriages, difficulty settling elsewhere, financial, professional, and political reasons, and finally a feeling of nostalgia5. The first three are the most important. This corresponds to Maòr’s findings, but I would like to explore these reasons and add a few of my own.
Emigrating to another country — even under the best conditions, without being persecuted, without danger to one’s life, without economic hardship — the mere act of emigrating creates a major turning point in life. Emigrants must decide where to settle, find a home and a job. If they leave with their partner or their family, those too must find work in the same city, schools must be found for the children, and all of this must be managed in a foreign language. There are also the administrative problems: one must obtain an entry visa, a residence permit, working papers, health insurance, one must have one’s diplomas and professional qualifications recognized, to mention only the most important. Emigration can certainly open up new opportunities, but in every case it is also a challenge. Even under good conditions, some emigrants find life in a new country difficult. Things do not turn out as hoped, and after a while some go back home. If they do, it is for reasons that have nothing to do with their own life or their emigration: for example, to care for an elderly parent or a family member.
Now let us compare the situation of those who returned to Germany with this “ideal” situation of immigration. They chose neither to leave nor the moment of leaving; they were forced to do so to protect their lives. Some were arrested, imprisoned, or tortured. Many were unable to take much with them. Many left with the clothes they were wearing and without administrative documents. Many could not really choose where they wanted to go. They went wherever they could get a visa or enter illegally. In all cases, most of them had to learn a new language — this includes those who went to English-speaking countries, since before the war English was not commonly taught in German schools. The countries that accepted Jews did not welcome them with open arms. They were granted only temporary residence and work certificates, which made it more difficult to build a new life. How does one start a business in a country when one knows that one may have to leave it a few years later and, doubtless, that one will be forced to leave that business behind? And even without these administrative obstacles, what was the welcome from society at large for these refugees?
Let us picture the situation of a Jewish refugee in another country. Life is not going as he would like, for one reason or another, and he is considering leaving the country. Where to go? An important consideration: which country will let him or her in? Even after the Second World War, Switzerland, for example, had a policy of granting Jewish refugees only temporary residence permits and subjecting them to still further restrictions6. The few Jews who had been granted permission to enter the country were expected to leave it after a certain time. Obviously, emigrating to a country that pursued such a policy was not an attractive option. Such reception policies that were less than benevolent doubtless reflected the general feeling of society toward Jewish refugees. Moreover, much of Europe was in ruins after the Second World War. Even a country like England, which had not been occupied by Nazi Germany, had to rebuild the cities damaged and even devastated by bombing during the war. Particularly during the first postwar years, these countries could not be considered attractive places. And there too, the Jews who wished to settle would have to live through the whole experience of emigration once again, including that of learning a new language.
At that time, some countries of Western Europe were ruled by dictators. For example, Spain was under the rule of Franco, and Portugal under that of Salazar: yet another reason not to emigrate to these countries — apart from the fact that only very small Jewish populations had resided there for centuries.
Eastern Europe, besides having been ravaged by the Second World War and by the Shoah, was under the influence of the USSR and Stalin. Only hardline communists could have considered going there. And one must not forget that there were pogroms, in Poland for example, in the years following the Second World War, as well as in the 1960s.
This brings us back to another question: Germany was not the only European country to have persecuted the Jews. Of course, the starting point of the Shoah came from Germany, and it was the Nazi government that planned and coordinated the countless policies and measures that made it possible to strip Jews of their rights as citizens, to steal their property, to expel them, to imprison them, to torture them, to rape them, and to kill them on a mass scale. And yet the Shoah, whose aim was “not only” to kill the Jews but to exterminate the Jewish people as an entity, could not have come so close to achieving its objectives — and it came very close to its goal in many places — had there not been an active and even enthusiastic collaboration of the populations and governments of other European countries.
For example, the Netherlands has the reputation of being an open-minded and liberal country, in part because of what a Dutch sociologist and journalist, Wanya F. Kruyer, called “the Anne Frank myth”7 — the myth according to which the Dutch people heroically hid and protected the Jews from the German occupiers of the country. The trouble with this myth is that it failed to tell the end of Anne Frank’s story: it was also Dutch people who betrayed the place where she was hiding, thus leading to her capture and her deportation to the camp where she died. From the point of view of a German Jew who had emigrated to a different country, would this have made the Netherlands an attractive place to go?
What about Israel as an alternative? Some Jews were indeed drawn to Israel and settled there. But others did not subscribe to that option. Still others tried life in Israel and then returned to Germany. It must be remembered that Israel has been a country at war since it was founded in 1948. The country had to be built, almost in the literal sense, and life there was hard, especially in the early years. As is often the case, a joke can be revealing of the realities of Jewish life: One sweltering day in Tel Aviv, in 1950, a passenger faints on a bus. At once he is surrounded by a dozen passengers — all of them doctors. The bus driver stops the engine, turns around to them, and declares, “Gentlemen, on my bus, I’m the one who treats the patients.”
Apart from the fact that professionals and intellectuals had to practice trades well below their level of education, this joke also reminds us that some Jews could not bear the heat of the climate, and that some returned to Germany for that reason.
If life in Israel was difficult, imagine the situation in the Third World countries where German Jews found themselves, countries ranging from Bolivia to Tajikistan. Compared with the political, social, and economic conditions there, Germany may well have seemed a reasonable alternative.
It is rare for a country or a society to give a warm welcome to refugees — then as now. Apart from the bureaucratic difficulties, refugees must face the fact that wherever they go, they are not — by definition — locals and are not part of the “alumni” networks. It sometimes happens that they cannot understand the cultural subtleties of the place or that they are unable to play the “game” necessary to get ahead professionally or socially.
With this life in other countries that was far from perfect, some Jews considered returning to Germany. Their reasons for doing so were varied (and are presented here in no particular order):
Homesickness. Despite all that had happened, many German Jews had felt at home in Germany before the Second World War and the Shoah. The language, the culture, the food, the landscape, and many other elements were familiar to them. It is not uncommon for migrants and refugees to feel homesick, and this was certainly an aspect of what German Jewish refugees felt abroad.
The desire not to let Nazism have the last word. Some of those who returned thought that Hitler must not prevail: Germany must not become “Judenrein” (cleansed of its Jews).
The need to keep an eye on the Germans. Some thought that, after the horrors of the Shoah and the Second World War, watching the Germans closely was the only way to ensure that they would never again commit such atrocities. Such surveillance was not possible from abroad.
Social welfare and the health system. The Federal Republic was founded as a country with a social market economy, and its health protection system covered the entire population — a radical contrast with many other countries in the world. For refugees who suffered from illnesses and could not afford medical treatment or health insurance, this was a powerful incentive to return to Germany. A physical or mental illness could arise, triggered or aggravated by the stress of persecution, torture, incarceration, and by emigration as well as by other causes.
Family members living in Germany. It is conceivable that family members who had gone to other countries returned to Germany to be near their relatives who lived there. Even after the Second World War, Jews who were in Germany (for whatever reason) could not freely emigrate to the country of their choice. The United States, for example, gave medical examinations to Jews who wanted to go there and sent home those who had certain illnesses — even when it was a case of tuberculosis they had contracted in a concentration camp. Other family members in Germany were too old or too frail to emigrate elsewhere. Virtually all German Jews had lost family members in the Shoah, and staying near those who had survived — or even trying to establish who had survived — was a priority.
Mixed marriages between a Jew and a non-Jewish partner were not rare in prewar Germany. Such couples had non-Jewish relatives in Germany, and it is conceivable that they returned to Germany to be near them. It is also possible that these relatives were in a position to help those who returned to settle, for example by helping them find work, or by employing them in a family business.
In this context one must remember that international travel and communications, even telephone calls, were much more difficult and more expensive than they are today. Letters could not replace personal contact, even for people who took pleasure in writing them frequently.
The hope of obtaining Wiedergutmachung (compensation) more easily. Claiming property, obtaining restitution or compensation was a difficult process, and a few of those who returned hoped that they would succeed better by being in Germany than by being abroad.
The desire to help build a better Germany. A few Jews who returned to East Germany wanted to build a better Germany as a socialist country. Others wished to contribute to making West Germany a true democracy. Indeed, a few among those who returned became involved in political activity and held important political posts; others too were active, but in a less prominent way.
Professional opportunities. Thanks to the Marshall Plan, Germany had become the economic engine of Europe. Professional opportunities there were better than in other parts of the world, and some of those who returned had received their training in Germany and were familiar with the German system.
What did they find on their return? A full analysis or even a description of the variety of relations between Jewish and non-Jewish Germans since 1945 would fill several volumes.
To put it briefly: to this day, relations between Jews and non-Jews in Germany are not “normal” (whatever meaning is given to that word),
“and each generation gives them a new turn. On the non-Jewish side there are often feelings of guilt, the trauma of their own losses, distrust, a residual — and often unconscious — antisemitism. There is the denial of the very existence of difficulties — but there is also, in some, a genuine desire to make amends. All of this exists within a context of extreme ‘unfamiliarity’ with Jews and Judaism: most Germans born after the Second World War have never spoken to a Jew and know practically nothing about Judaism. The result is that they receive their mental images of Jews either filtered through the media and history books, or unfiltered through teachers and family sources who lived during the Nazi period. The dominant themes are the Shoah, the characters in Woody Allen’s films, images of the ultra-Orthodox, and clichés about Israel. (…) Germany and the Germans are from time to time still regarded with distrust by other European states and peoples, not only by Jews, and some Germans find it hard to bear having to confront this suspicion. Most Jews in Germany have to deal with the trauma in their own lives or the lives of their families, with feelings that include grief, resentment, distrust, the desire for revenge (which remains a taboo), fear, sadness, and a form of numbness.
“Like it or not, because they live among a population that includes the perpetrators and their descendants, as classmates, or as colleagues, neighbors, and so on, they have to develop a means of coping with this situation on a daily basis. (…) Jews in Germany, particularly those who have lived here for decades, are especially sensitive to these questions, as if, crossing a frozen lake, they could never know the thickness of the ice beneath their feet. One can never know when antisemitism may surface in everyday situations or when people one did not think were antisemites will unexpectedly express that sentiment. Despite everything, it must be stressed that there are evidently non-Jewish Germans whose attitudes and behavior show sensitivity toward Jews”8.
Although there have been attempts to implement education about the Shoah, and to tackle antisemitism, they have met with only partial success.
From time to time public debates break out concerning Jews, the Shoah, and antisemitism (for example, the historians’ debate in 1986/87 and the Walser-Bubis debate of 1998/99), during which antisemitism expresses itself openly.
While some Jews say that they never suffered overt antisemitism in the decades that followed their return to Germany, others were less fortunate. Because of the time that has elapsed, few people remain who might have been perpetrators of the Shoah and who are still alive. But far more numerous were the people who were present, particularly in the immediate postwar period — as well as others of their generation who were sympathizers or passive witnesses, people who not only did not help the Jews but profited from their persecution. It was not uncommon for supporters of the Nazi regime to have continued their careers unimpeded. By contrast, not a single university in Germany reached out to all the Jewish professors who had been banished from it in order to reinstate them in their posts.
The emotional reaction to this return to Germany is surely one of the most difficult questions. From this point of view too, they form a group of very diverse people, and they had different experiences in Germany as well as in exile. And they had a whole variety of expectations linked to their return to Germany. Many of them belonged to a generation and a culture in which one did not speak much about personal matters, and certainly not with strangers. The Germany they found on their return was no longer the country they had left — Nazi Germany — and it was not the earlier country they remembered either, the Germany of the 1920s and the early 1930s, with its progressive aspects (e.g. the Bauhaus) and its antisemitic and reactionary aspects, those that were to lead to the rise of the Nazis. When they returned, they could not foresee how Germany would develop.
Many of those who returned felt deeply torn about their return. Numerous interviews were conducted with them. However, I believe that one should not take at face value everything they said. As is the case with other personal matters, especially difficult ones, people have a “real” story that they tell to those who are close to them, if they have any, and they have another version that they bring up in public if necessary. Many of those who returned were doubtless aware that they were speaking to an audience that was not entirely well-disposed toward them. Another reason to present a certain image.
As Maòr explained, most of the Jews who returned to Germany and who were members of the Jewish communities were not particularly observant. Those who were not members of the Jewish communities probably were not either, but that does not mean that they did not “feel” Jewish or that they were not active in Jewish life. All of them (members of the communities or outside them) and their children who grew up in Germany, or who at least spent part of their childhood or adolescence there, contributed to the development of what is now called “the Jewish space.” The Jewish space “seems to mark the space in society where Jewish themes — in the broadest sense, far transcending the religious aspects — are present. It includes everything (…) from interreligious dialogue to Israeli folk-dance classes, from Jewish studies programs at universities to bagels (…). This space is not populated solely by Jews; indeed, it can exist in the total absence of Jews.” Broadly speaking, since 1980 the Jewish space in Germany has grown significantly. Jewish life as we know it today, with a large number of events and organizations, did not exist in the first decades after the Second World War, and what we have at present did not arise out of nothing. It is the various activities of the Jews of Germany, including those who returned there, that laid its foundations, whether or not they were recognized at the time or in that context. They researched what had happened to their families and acquaintances during the Shoah, they engaged in Jewish-Christian dialogue, they established new minyanim and other Jewish groups, they fought for reparations, they documented prewar Jewish life, and they took part in the debates concerning the judicial prosecution of Nazi crimes. The Jews whose roots were German played an important role, because they were the ones who had a particular interest in prewar Jewish life in Germany (unlike what happened with prewar Jewish life in Poland or Russia, for example). They reconstituted our libraries: by rediscovering the Jewish writers and scholars who wrote in German.
Over recent decades, with the multitude of activities in the Jewish space in Germany, the country (or at least the main cities) has put on the agenda subjects that interest those who returned and their families. In many German cities, one can attend numerous public lectures, film screenings, or other activities dealing with the life and death of Jews in Germany — and this is not the case in most countries of the world. This makes Germany an interesting country for Jews to live in, particularly for those who have family roots in Germany — despite the difficulties present for the very same reasons.
The decision to settle in Germany — whether or not Jews or their families felt it to be a return — was an extremely complex life choice. The reasons for this choice were certainly as different as the individuals or families themselves. It was in all likelihood a combination of various reasons, sometimes conflicting, for each individual or family. Often there was simply no “perfect” alternative. Whether or not it was a good decision, the answer can come only from the individuals themselves.
(Translation by Hélène Oppenheim-Gluckman and Izio Rosenman)
Notes
Harry Maòr: Über den Wiederaufbau der jüdischen Gemeinden in Deutschland seit 1945, doctoral dissertation, University of Mainz, Germany, 1961.↩︎
Maòr 1960: 32.↩︎
For example, Doris Kuschner (1977): Die jüdische Minderheit in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Eine Analyse. Doctoral dissertation; Claus-Dieter Krohn, Erwin Rotermund, Lutz Winckler and Wulf Koepke (eds. on behalf of the Society for Exile Studies) (1991). Exilforschung. Ein internationales Jahrbuch, Vol. 9, Exil und Remigration. Munich: edition text + kritik; Ulrike Offenberg (1998). “Seid vorsichtig gegen die Machthaber. Die jüdischen Gemeinden in der SBZ und der DDR 1945-1990. Berlin: Aufbau-Verlag; Irmela von der Lühe, Axel Schildt and Stefanie Schüler-Springorum (eds.) (2008). “Auch in Deutschland waren wir nicht wirklich zu Hause” Jüdische Remigration nach 1945. Göttingen: Wallstein-Verlag; Ronald Webster (1995): Jüdische Rückkehrer in der BRD nach 1945: Ihre Motive, ihre Erfahrungen, in: Aschkenas-Zeitschrift für Geschichte und Kultur der Juden 5/1995, issue 1, pp. 47-77; Marita Krauss (2001). Heimkehr in ein fremdes Land. Geschichte der Remigration nach 1945. Munich: Beck.↩︎
Marita Krauss (2001). Heimkehr in ein fremdes Land. Geschichte der Remigration nach 1945. Munich: Beck, p. 10.↩︎
Ronald Webster (1995: 49), with reference to Kuschner 1977.↩︎
Madeleine Lerf (2010): “Buchenwaldkinder” — eine Schweizer Hilfsaktion: humanitäres Engagement, politisches Kalkül und individuelle Erfahrung. Zurich: Chronos.↩︎
Sandra Lustig (ed.) (2006/2008): Left Over — Living after the Shoah: (Re-)building Jewish Life in Europe. A Panel Discussion, in: Sandra Lustig, Ian Leveson (eds.) Turning the Kaleidoscope. Perspectives on European Jewry. Oxford/New York: Berghahn Books, pp. 119-146.↩︎
Sandra Lustig and Ian Leveson (2006/2008): Introduction. op. cit., pp. 1-23; citation: pp. 17-19.↩︎