L’dor v’dor
Oral histories, traditions, prayers, feasts, fasting, food - all flow from generation to generation.
You may have noticed the phrase l’dor v’dor in Chapter 1 of White Rose History, Volume 2. It’s a simple Hebrew phrase that means, “from generation to generation.” Oral histories, traditions, prayers, feasts, fasting, food - all flow from generation to generation.
This concept is hardly unique to Jewish life. German mothers teach daughters to set geraniums out in May, and when (and how) to bring them in come October. German fathers teach sons to creosote fences before winter sets in. In rural settings, children help out with herding of cattle from pastures to barns, preparing for long winters, celebrating on Kirwa that the work is done. In October, moms share Lebkuchen recipes with daughters, as prep work begins well in advance of Christmas.
And yes, these traditions still seem to be passed down mother to daughter, father to son.
In the US, our nomadic, well-blended, tossed salad existence has turned “tradition” into something unique to a single family unit. In the 1800s, a German Catholic dad and an English Methodist mom would have had little overlap in family traditions. They’d have created their own.
When one of their children would marry, perhaps wed to a nice Jewish boy whose parents had fled Russia, or to a second-gen Japanese American, or even to another English Methodist or German Catholic, a whole new set of traditions would be birthed.
If you think about it, it’s surprising that we as US Americans have any traditions handed down “from generation to generation.” Perhaps that’s why holidays like Martin Luther King Day, Presidents’ Day, Flag Day, Fourth of July, Labor Day, Hallowe’en, Thanksgiving, and New Years mean so much to us as a whole. Our traditions that have been handed down, that unite us as a nation and as families? Tend to be secular, not bound to religious traditions.
Those Jewish and German traditions (and I assume French, Russian, and others) have deep roots in religion. Even irreligious Germans will gather around the Christmas tree, and secular Jews will attend shul on Rosh HaShanah, feasting with loved ones afterwards.
I can hear you asking: So why did you use the Hebrew term for this concept? Why not the German or English?
First, there is no equivalent German phrase. I know, that shocks me as well. I even checked old dictionaries plus Leo. Nope. Germans practice the concept. Von Generation zu Generation is a newer linguistic construct.
We English-speakers do speak of this generational passing on of traditions. And indeed, I write l’dor v’dor, from generation to generation. We may not be good at doing it, but we understand what it means.
But there’s a deeper reason for using the Hebrew phrase.
If you read most histories about life in Germany during the Shoah, Jewish life is missing. It’s just gone. As if everything prior to 1933 had not happened, as if the only traditions passed down were Catholic or Lutheran, as if…
A German acquaintance [in the USA] asked the writer Peter Gay how German Jews could have gone like lambs to the slaughter, knowing that Gay’s family had emigrated to the United States at the last possible minute. He replied, “This [question] made it plain to me that even among well-informed Germans there must be many who had not an inkling how Jews had lived in Nazi Germany, how little such Germans knew about their former fellow citizens, and how the world outside the Nazi dictatorship looked to the German Jews; it was for them a world that was reluctant to accept as immigrants lawyers and businessmen who, for the most part, knew only German.” (New York Review, February 10, 2000.)
He considered himself German first, Jewish second.
German Jews prior to Hitler’s ever-tightening noose celebrated Chanukah. Young couples stood under the chuppah when they married. Bris, bar mitzvah, taking one’s place in the synagogue, all part of a young boy’s life. German Jews purged their homes of chametz come Passover, with mothers teaching daughters how to make charoset. The way their great-great-grandmothers had. German Jews shut down their businesses from the day before Rosh HaShanah until Sukkoth ended. And Pesach? Fuggedaboutit. If you lived in Berlin or Munich or Ulm, and your CPA or attorney was Jewish, you’d better have gotten paperwork to him long before the holiday started.
In other words, German Jewish life was not hidden, was not silent. German Jews put their Chanukiah in windows every December same as German Catholics or Lutherans put their trees up. The Chanukiah was likely even more visible than the Christmas tree!, since it was placed in a street-facing window. Observant Jewish men would have worn a head covering in public, no shame attached to that.
And before National Socialism made it “cool” to be antisemitic? German Catholics and Lutherans accepted – even participated in – the life events of their Jewish neighbors. So what if their CPA wore a kippah? As long as he did their taxes right, as long as he kept the Finanzamt at bay, that was all that mattered. If they were friends as well as business acquaintances, he’d make sure that new baby boy had a proper present for his bris, and that he congratulated him on the nuptials of his daughter.
Life wasn’t perfect for the Jewish community in Germany. Life is never perfect. German Jews were happy that they had a home where they could practice their faith, where they could become successful accountants or attorneys or storekeepers, where they could raise a family without fear. They knew what was happening in Eastern Europe, the blood libels, the pogroms, the murders. And in Germany – before 1933 – they did not have those things to worry about.
One of the Kaisers had even given a synagogue a carillon, not knowing that’s not a “thing” in Judaism. The members of that shul happily installed the bells, probably the only bells that ever pealed from a synagogue. They were part of the community.
And indeed, for the first few years of Hitler’s regime, things weren’t good, but German Jews knew it could be worse. I met a sweet, sweet woman in Salt Lake City, last bride in the synagogue in Augsburg, her son the last bris in that same shul. In 1938. Ruth Schwager nee Teutsch and her husband and small child stayed in Germany for three more years, not leaving for the US until Pete was three years old. They kept hoping that their fellow citizens would come back to their senses. Ruth loved Augsburg so very, very deeply. It was home.
When I met them, I was moved that l’dor v’dor had held true not just for Jewish traditions that Ruth had brought with her from Augsburg. She had also taught Pete how to make good German food! More than fifty years after emigrating to the USA, Ruth had maintained both her Jewish and her German identity.
And yet – every single book I read about White Rose, about the Shoah, about German resistance during the Holocaust, every single one ignored Germany’s Jewish population. There were no Chanukiah, no Jews on the soccer teams, no Jewish scholars or classmates.
Susanne Hirzel’s little book, Vom Ja Zum Nein, was the first I read where her Jewish friends received appropriate ink. Whether it was a classmate who recited the Shema after her Catholic classmates said the Lord’s Prayer, or the Jewish kid who got mightily upset when he wasn’t allowed to join Hitler Youth (1933) like everyone else, or the star soccer player and student athlete who was Jewish. Susanne writes them into her life. Because they were part of her life.
So yes, I made a point of re-inserting Jewish life back into the White Rose story. You’ll see Passover, Chanukah, Tisha b’Av, part of daily life in Germany. In White Rose History, Volume 1, you’ll be introduced to bündische, Jewish youth groups. I learned about them from the excellent Puls publication, Deutsch, Jüdisch, Bündisch: Erinnerung an die aus Deutschland vertriebene jüdische Jugendbewegung. And I learned about Jewish life in Ulm from the remarkable anthology assembled by the Stadtarchiv Ulm in the late 1980s, Zeugnisse zur Geschichte der Juden in Ulm. (Link takes you to the book review with publication information.)
There is far more work that needs to be done along these lines. My work should only serve as beginning, as impetus for others to dig deeper. When
and I were at the Willi Graf Tagung in Munich in October 2023, I was stunned when one speaker noted that the Johannishof – the pub and meeting place that Willi Graf’s father managed and where Willi Graf lived – was in a part of Saarbrücken that was more than 30% Jewish!Where are the Jewish businesses, classmates, neighbors in Willi Graf’s letters and diaries? I had known that Anneliese Knoop-Graf and Inge Jens had only published Willi’s diaries from June 1942 on, after he met Hans Scholl, with selected correspondence prior to that. What is missing? I hope the new owners of the Graf archives in Munich will make everything, and I mean everything, available to scholars.
Because in a neighborhood that had an overrepresentation of Jewish population? Willi had to have known many families who were directly impacted by Kristallnacht.
And don’t even get me started about the Scholls, who were the only non-Jewish family in their apartment building on that date. Or the gaps in letters of Alexander Schmorell and Christoph Probst. Much less Kurt Huber’s blocked archives.
Try imagining contemporary American life without Steven Spielberg, without Barbra Streisand, without Jake Gyllenhaal. Without Louis Brandeis, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer. Without Alex Bregman, Marv Levy, Aly Raisman. Without Carl Bernstein, Katie Couric, Jennifer Rubin. Without Betty Friedan, Abraham Joshua Heschel and his daughter Susannah, Norman Siegel, Shatzi Weinberger, Gloria Steinem.
Now try imagining a history about our times, written in 2104, that writes these celebrities and thinkers out of our lives as we live and know it. How accurate would such a history be? No matter your opinion of these people or their politics or causes or batting averages, leaving them out of a history of life in early 21st century America would paint an incomplete picture, one that misrepresents who we are as a nation.
When you read l’dor v’dor, or when you are confronted with a Chanukiah as you read the White Rose histories or this Substack, remember. Remember the vibrancy of Jewish life in Germany before 1933. Remember that Christoph Probst’s stepmother and Eugen Grimminger’s wife feared for their lives after 1933.
Remember that once upon a time, Jewish and German kugel were one and the same.
I’ve enabled the “chat” feature on Substack. Going forward, you’ll start to see the button “Send Denise Heap a message” on posts or ‘podcasts’ that deal with controversial or less well-known or obscure topics. Please use! I will try to respond within 24 hours, unless I’m traveling.
This feature is essentially Substack’s version of a DM or direct message. It’s private, so not out there for the whole world to see.
And this is the first post I am adding it to.
© 2024 Denise Elaine Heap. Please contact us for permission to quote.
To order digital version of White Rose History, Volume II, click here. Digital version of White Rose History, Volume I is available here.