Studying the post-war psychology of Germans, Barbara Heimannsberg reflected,
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Probably a knowledge of history in and of itself makes up a comparatively small part of one's
sense of identity. More relevant is one's relationship to history.i
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In late summer or early autumn 1945, at the request of the British, a concentration camp survivor
recorded,
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… I received a household position from a mixed-marriage couple in Berlin-Tempelhof, and I then
soon wholly moved in with these people. Afterward, well there were more and more anxiety-terror
attacks ... ... I was sent by these people to Oberschlesien, to their relatives, spent the night
during the journey in a hotel in Beuthen O.B. and was there unfortunately arrested ... ... I was
interrogated daily by the Gestapo, to be precise the major worth lay in learning from whom I had
received false papers. - After I was in "preventive detention" for 4 weeks, I arrived at
Auschwitz. In one barrack, someone took my personal details and tattooed me. ... ... We received
very salty soup (bromine), very bad tea and little bread. ... We were supervised by SS men who
always led large dogs that were set on us from time to time. The girls had great woundings, and
were beaten too, were brought to a corner and left to lie there. We were not allowed to care for
the wounded. After 3-4 hours 0ur companions died. We had a death in our unit almost every day.
ii
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In 1952, that survivor became my mother. My father is also a concentration camp survivor.
They neither dwelled upon the Holocaust nor avoided it during my childhood. Individual Germans
(and others) were good and/or bad. With poise, my parents answered questions vividly. I was
curious (and still am).
I became a physician (assistant professor at a medical school, president of a hospital medical
staff, etc.) - professionally satisfying and worthy, but not quite sufficiently fulfilling.
I began delving into my "relationship to history" with daughters and other sons of Holocaust
survivors, with sons and daughters of Nazis, and with others. I remain moved, fascinated,
enlightened and gratified.
Over the past decade, the Holocaust and "me and mine" have have grown to be joined in earnest by
genocide and by "the other."iii
 So I am,
unfolding and motivated.
i
The Collective Silence: German Identity and the Legacy of Shame, edited by Barbara
Heimannsberg and Christoph Schmidt, translated by Cynthia Oudejans Harris and Gordon Wheeler
(San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1993, ISBN: 1555425569).
ii Translated from the original German by me.
iii
I find resonance in Leonard Grob's discussion of Emmanuel Levinas' use of "the
other" in Returning Home: Critiques, in Ethics after the Holocaust: Perspectives, Critiques,
and Responses, edited by John Roth (St. Paul: Paragon House, 1999, ISBN 1-55778-771-9) 298-300.
Topics
Post-Holocaust / Post-Genocide / Post-Emigration, Second-Generation Issues
Post-Holocaust / Post-Genocide, Second-Generation Dialogue
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