I Sleep in Hitler's Room (13 page)

Then Johanna passes by. She says, “I feel disgust about what the Israelis did. I am stunned by the behavior of the Israelis. When I first heard it—I’d just come back from vacation—I felt, oh God, how could this happen?! How could the Israelis have done that?!”

Are you proud to be German?

“Most of the time.”

What does it mean to be German?

“Always be on time, conscious of your duties, boring at times, not as open, utilizing the head more than the heart.”

What’s the best thing about being German?

“Being in the center of Europe, so that you can travel around.”

We’re outside, and students show up. It’s smoking time! What’s on their minds? What do they think of the sea story?

Alex: “Bad. Very bad. You can’t shoot people like this!”

Sarah: “I can’t understand how they shot them. What kind of iPad do you have? Is it with 3G or just wi-fi?”

Florian: “It’s a shame.”

Sarah: “I don’t know why you need an iPad. What’s wrong with a netbook?”

Are they proud to be German? I ask them.

All say they are. Interesting!

But, oops, not all of them got to express their thoughts about the sea story. Mark wants to have his say.

Mark: “It’s very, very bad.”

As more students gather near me, I ask if any of them has a different opinion.

No, says Alex. Not one of them.

Why is it, I ask them, that in a democratic society everybody has the same opinion? What happened to multiplicity of ideas? And what happened to law, which requires facts first. Do they have the facts? Did any of them take into account the Israelis’ version, that they were attacked first?

No. None of them.

Why do they dismiss the Israeli side? Do they have proof that the Israelis lie? None has.

As future lawyers, and judges as well, how did they arrive at a conclusion before examining the facts? This is the law school, right? Could it be, I push on, that you came to the conclusion that Israel is guilty because, how to put it mildly, you don’t like Israel, because they are Jews—?

Quiet. Silence. Time passes and no one talks. The cheerful young faces are now fallen. Should I take a picture of this sad image?

I repeat the question, push more aggressively for an answer.

Finally Alex gives in. “It is against international law, that’s why we are against it.”

Do you actually study international law?

“No.”

So how do you know?

Silence.

No one volunteers to say anything anymore. It is Sarah who breaks the silence.

Sarah: “I went to the Apple store, I wanted to buy the iPad with the 3G, but they didn’t have it anymore. Sold out. I would buy it if they had it, but they didn’t.”

Is it good to be German?

Yes, all say.

Will they raise the German flag?

Only at soccer games.

Why only then?

Sarah: “They will call us Nazis if we did it any other time.”

And then there is Lenard, another student.

Lenard: “I saw on TV that there were some kind of weapons on board. And unless I have all the facts I cannot decide. That’s what being a lawyer is, you need the facts first.”

Are you proud to be German?

He laughs loudly. “Oh, no!”

Michael Krüger, publisher for the German firm Carl Hanser Verlag, and André Schiffrin, publisher and founder of the American firm New Press, don’t laugh. They are serious people. And both are heavy guns in the publishing industry.

André, formerly with Pantheon Books, and the man who helped introduce Foucault and Chomsky to the American reader, is giving a speech tonight at Seidlvilla, Schwabing, where I am at this very moment. André is to speak in English, and Michael is going to be the translator. Besides these two, many other heavyweights presently grace my company. “Top of the top,” a man tells me, “of German culture is here tonight.”

The program for this highly intellectual evening is about to start. We all sit down, and André is all ready to enlighten us with his wisdom and knowledge. He tells his esteemed audience that Condoleezza Rice, former US secretary of state, met the heads of major American TV networks before the invasion of Iraq and asked them not to show images of wounded soldiers on screen. They agreed. It is why, André explains, former US president George W. Bush was reelected to his second term, and this is why 75 percent of Americans at the time thought that Iraq had nuclear weapons. Returning the favor, continues André, the Bush Administration tried to repeal the law prohibiting owners of print media from also owning TV networks.

This story about major American TV networks is a major claim. In essence, it means that there is no real democracy in the United States and that even the “free media” are controlled by the US government. According to this telling, the United States is actually a dictatorial regime. Michael seems to enjoy every word of this, nodding his head as André speaks. The rest of the esteemed company here seems to be utterly excited as well. They hang on every syllable that comes out of André’s mouth. They look as if they’re licking his words.

I have heard this story before and tried to substantiate it, but all I could find were propaganda films that offered no proof. Maybe André will finally solve the puzzle for me. And so I catch up with him after the talk and ask him for the source of his claims.

André: “Nobody has ever asked me this before. I have mentioned it many times and was never asked to supply a source. You can check on Google.”

A more specific source?

“Did you try Google?”

I did, long ago, but couldn’t find anything substantive. Do you have a more specific source than just Google?

“No, I don’t have a specific source.”

Can you substantiate it in any other way?

“Why are you asking me this?!”

I happen to be a journalist and I need a source to—

“If you want me to quote a source, I can’t.”

There is not much of a difference between the intellectuals here and the simple people I met at the church in the suburbs of Hamburg. Both have an American Prophet whom they blindly follow. Why are both groups so drawn to American liars? I don’t know. What I do know is that I need a break. Too many brainy people around me and I need something lighter. Any “lighter” Germans in the neighborhood? Can you recommend?

There is a place, or so I hear, a two-hour train ride from here, where in 1633 the townspeople vowed to put on a Passion play, depicting the Passion of Christ, once every ten years. They believed that if they did that they would be saved from a plague that struck the area at the time. They were saved indeed, according to the story, and the town has kept the vow ever since. It’s playing this year. I can see it tomorrow. Hundreds of thousands from all over the world come to see it. Why not me? Besides, I love train rides, and this is a good excuse.

A note here: Many Germans tell me that the DB is almost never on time. Let me tell you: Wrong! The DB is one of the most efficient train systems in the world. It’s highly sophisticated, fast, and on time. You can set your clock by it.

I am going to Oberammergau, to see the world-famous Passion play, the
Passionsfestspiele
.

The ride reveals unbelievably gorgeous landscapes. Here’s Starnberg, a beauty to behold. You can’t take your eyes off it. The train keeps moving, and the beautiful landscapes just keep coming. For miles on end. Valleys lie naked between the mountains, as slivers of clouds dance between them in rising songs. Angels in the image of ponds and rivers mix with cows and deer that constantly reveal themselves to you in their full glory. So much greenery, in all shapes of the imagination, lie in front of your eager eyes, that they shame the beauty of the Quranic Paradise. I can’t take my eyes off the endless seduction rising so abundantly all around my being. Captivatingly gorgeous churches, testimony to long history, slowly join in this chorus of magic majesty right in front of my eyes and whole body.

And I wonder: Beauty like this my eyes have never seen, riches like these my heart never has felt, images like these my mind has never experienced. Is this earth or heaven?

Lucky are the men, blessed are the women, whose fate and destiny it is to live in this part of the planet. For they have it all: the mystery of old, the technology of the future, and the best of the present.

Who are these people? The Germans.

I get up from my seat, gaze out and in, look at creatures near me, and I want to scream: With these treasures joining you, with this beauty your inheritance, Why, in goodness’ name, did you ever engage in a war? What else, what more, did you want? Could a man ever aspire to more? Could a woman?

What were you thinking?

The Passion play starts. And before you know it, Adam and Eve appear, he has brown hair and she’s blonde. And then Jesus enters Jerusalem, kids in tow. (Sister Jutta-Maria was right. Jesus is no Italian. He’s German.) Hundreds of actors are onstage, and mostly they just stand there almost motionless. Too bad, because this makes the performance too static. Whoever directed this must have been sleeping during rehearsals. Otherwise I can’t understand how he allowed this to happen. All the characters here speak in the same tone, Jesus included. This makes me conclude that not one of the hundreds of the players on the stage is a real actor. I’m sure these people have some talents, maybe even many talents, but acting is not one of them.

This production earned much publicity, including in the United States. This is due to the involvement of some Jewish organizations, such as the American Jewish Committee, in reshaping this production. While years ago (most recently in 1984) Jewish priests had horns on their heads, today Jesus is referred to as “Rabbi,” and his followers wear skullcaps. Biblical verses, as well as some Jewish prayers, are spoken and sung in Hebrew by the adults and children of this German town. Interestingly, these German kids and their parents, all residents of this little village, pronounce Hebrew much better than most of the highest-paid American Jewish rabbis.

By making it obvious that Jesus, as well as his disciples, was Jewish, the organizers here have tried to move away from the historic anti-Semitic overtones that traditionally plagued the Passion play. And by concentrating on the life of Jesus and not only on his death—a tough job, as the sources for his life are limited—the organizers signaled a desire to correct a wrong of many centuries, that of emphasizing the “Jewish torturers of Christ,” that in the past earned so many accolades in the anti-Semitic world. Adolf Hitler, the history books tell us, was very delighted to see the Passion play in the Oberammergau of his time.

But the story as unfolded here lacks drama, and the reason for the creation of a new religion is not understood. Especially in this version, sensitive to Jewish feeling, the story comes across more as that of a Jewish rabbi and his followers than of a new religion being formed.

Part 1, lasting a little over two and a half hours, ends. Now we, the crowd of about five thousand, are going for a three-hour break. Part 2, which will have to include the death of Jesus, will be interesting to watch. How PC could the people here make it? Most importantly, how will the Jews and Pilate be portrayed? This, after all, is one of the most sensitive issues in the historic Christian–Jewish relations. How unwilling of a character will Pilate be in terms of the order he gives to kill Jesus? How demanding will the Jews be in wanting him dead?

Part 2 starts. And in part 2 all PC collapses. Pilate is shown as forced to kill Jesus by the Sanhedrin, the high council, and the priests. He’s pissed off, he refuses, he screams, he does all he can. But the Jews are smarter, more conniving, and they gain the upper hand. The Let’s-be-nice-to-the-Jews part of this production falls completely apart. Interestingly, Pilate seems here much more innocent than a normal reading of the New Testament would allow.

How could this happen? How could a production geared to be pro-Jewish end up anti-? I don’t know. Maybe it’s part and parcel of the New Testament. It was Paul, after all, who said (1 Thessalonians [2:14–15]) that “the Jews” killed Lord Jesus. The problem, of course, is that people tend to forget that early Christians were Jews who debated with each other. True: This production tries to illustrate the Jewishness of Jesus and his disciples. But are they successful? I sit down with Renate Frank, the sister of the Passion director, Christian Stückl. Renate, who is also one of the players, has long hair that she let grow specifically for this show. I ask her if Jesus was Jewish.