MEETING A NAZI’S DESCENDANT

A meditation on the challenge of choosing life’s paths


In this last week edition of the Jewish Press, there’s an article by Elliot Resnick, a reporter staff who wrote about a challenging task that a Holocaust survivor took upon herself: Meet the daughter of a former Nazi commander called Goeth; as the daughter of the Nazi called Helen Jonas out that she desired to meet her.

Now, after 60 years of the horrendous Holocaust tragedy they met in Poland; the meeting is going to be portrayed as a documentary airing on TV. I’m not so sure how genuine the documentary is going to be, but if it really is – it’s probably a story that catches attention due to its implication.

I’m aware that there are few descendents of Nazi commanders that even converted to Judaism and happened to give speeches; but this seems a different case, the daughter whose name is Monika Hertwig was willing to meet Mrs. Jonas who was saved by the real famous hero Schindler ( Schindler’s list by Spielberg) during World war II.

What would cause a daughter of a Nazi look forward to meeting a Holocaust survivor who used to live in her father’s village? Would it be due to a sense of trying to distance herself from the image of her father? Mrs.Hertwig only found out about her father's past either at the age of 11 or 13.

I think the whole curiosity itself involving the story is the reason to film a documentary. Should we blame a daughter of a Nazi for the behavior of her father? Whatever one may conclude about the complexity of this fact; she probably has to bear the fact of being connected with her father.

Human beings in general are judged in society by our family branches, because we happen to carry their DNA, whether good or bad. Nevertheless, every individual has their personal “marks” and personality character – though there might be tendencies.

When, one’s ancestors are good loving people, we hope to see that their descendants are going to be good and hopefully surface their Mitzvot. Yet, throughout the whole Torah we see all kinds of mixed cases.

As Torah describes some brothers acted good and some bad to name a few: Cain vs. Abel (good), Jacob vs. Esau (wicked) and what about Korach’s sons that not only didn’t agree with their own father’s wickedness, even endured the shame of being Korach’s son and they totally separated themselves from their wickedness's influence and were able to compose inspirational Psalms (Tehilim) to G-d due to their desire to reach higher divine levels.

What about the opposite path of Absalom? Having as a father the righteous David HaMelech( king David) chose the wrong path.

Korach’s sons chose the right path, removing themselves from the evil influence of their father; so how much easier it should be for all of us to reach higher grounds and win the battle of evil we face?

In regards to Mrs. Hertwig, we should consider that the fact that she wants to dialogue with a Jewish survivor may proof that she’s trying to expel herself from the darkness of her father’s ideology.

In resume, whatever the case of a person might be there's a choice; in the case of the Jewish nation - we must emulate the ultimate goodness of our forefathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.


By Carine


The trailer of the documentary:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGAJpE3LOhs

Jewish Press article about the encounter: http://www.jewishpress.com/pageroute.do/37366/Holocaust_Survivor_M.html

Ps: P.O.V will be streaming film until January at http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2008/inheritance/fullfilm.html - if you click on the title you can be redirected to the streaming video.