After he learns of his father’s Nazi past, a German man turns to Judaism

By Cindy Mindell

Bernd Wollschlaeger was raised in post-World War II Germany to believe that the Holocaust never happened. But the 1972 Olympic Games massacre in Munich changed all that. It sent   him on a quest to understand the legacy of his family and his nation, and would eventually lead him to Judaism and Israel, where he became a citizen and served in the military. He recounts his emotionally arduous journey in his 2007 memoir A German Life: Against All Odds Change Is Possible.

A board-certified family physician, Wollschlaeger met his American wife in Israel and relocated to Aventura, Fla. at her request in 1991. He still visits Israel often. Wollschlaeger will tell his extraordinary story on Wednesday, April 29 in Fairfield and on Thursday, May 14 in West Hartford.

Recently, he talked with the Ledger about his life, and the odd – and improbable – turn it has taken.

Q: How did your journey to Judaism begin?

A: I was born in Germany in 1958, the son of a Protestant father and a Catholic mother, and during my upbringing, I found out that my father was not the self-styled war hero that he always depicted and described himself as, and as his friends described him. I found out that he had a secret past – specifically, his denial of the Holocaust and his denial of the murder of the Jews in the east, which we were dealing with at school. At the same time, we also had to deal with the murder of the Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972. The school curriculum suddenly became a bloody, sad, and cruel reality. We talked about the fact that the murder of the Israelis was a very reprehensible example of the prevalence of hate driven behavior.

There was a mixture of anger, shock, guilt and shame and even embarrassment, everything together, that served as a catalyst to explore further. I asked myself the question, why do people hate the Jews? This forced me to expose questions about my father’s past because he denied any knowledge about it.

By exploring the role of Jews in German society, the murder and extermination of the Jews in the name of Germany – practically in the name of the people that I belonged to – made me question the entire issue of the Jews and ask why my father was not talking about it.

I explored Judaism in theory, through books and magazines, whatever I could find; then, I met a group of young Israeli Jews and Arabs at a peace conference in Germany and decided at age 18 to explore Israel on my own. I fell in love with the people and the culture and in the end, also with the religion. Over the course of seven years, serving in Germany as a Shabbes goy, I converted to Judaism, immigrated to Israel, became an Israeli citizen, and served in the Israeli army as an officer.

Q: What motivated you to write your 2007 memoir, A German Life: Against All Odds Change Is Possible?

A: At first, I found my past so overwhelming that I decided not to talk about it: I didn’t want to be identified as the son of a Nazi, but I wanted to be identified as a Jew and as an Israeli coming from Germany. When my children asked me questions about my past, I opened up and I reconnected for the first time with my own past. I travelled back to Germany for the first time after 20 years and rediscovered my past and my father’s past – which in many ways I suspected but didn’t know. What I found out was very troublesome: he was not only the war hero – he probably was, taking into consideration the values system of the time – but also was actively participating in or condoning the mass murder of civilians and having active knowledge about it. Painfully, I found out so many years after his death that he was lying to me, which forced me to challenge my own identity again.

But then, at the conclusion of my rediscovery and self-discovery, I decided to talk about it, not only to my family but to others, in order to make them aware that hatred has very human origins – it’s not an abstract force, it’s a very concrete manifestation of human behavior. If we early enough raise our voices against words of hatred, we are able to stem the flood of hateful acts. Somebody has to speak up and everybody has the power to speak up. One does not have to be as radical as I am in my decision-making and the pursuit of my own goals, but one could be as courageous in their own life and say, “I will not tolerate hatred, prejudice, stereotypes anymore.”

And so, my story is not only telling my life as a way of self-glorification or self-aggrandizing – this is absolutely not what I have in mind. My experience is a platform to send the message that we shouldn’t put up with hatred. We should learn from the past and individuals can learn; individuals can change. We as individuals should not follow the opinion that is set forth by someone but should bring our own minds and our own opinions and our own judgment. This has a very actual connection to reality because we still haven’t stopped hating each other politically, racially, ethnically, religiously – all shapes and forms. The question is, will we ever stop?

Q: How did your Israeli military experience affect your thinking?

A: As I describe in one of the chapters in my biography, from the very beginning, during my Israeli experience, I had to deal with the fact that Israel is a country of many features: it has a deep dual culture – the Jewish culture and the Arab culture, which merge in some kind of a bi-national Israeli culture; they have so many overlapping touchpoints and contact between the Jewish and Arab cultures that always fascinated me. I think that makes Israel so unique.

I did my military service out of commitment to my adopted country and the country that adopted me, and I served with a military transport as a medical officer in the West Bank and in an Israeli army military hospital.

What shaped my military service was my understanding of both sides of the conflict. I have very strong opinions about what our rights are as Jews and as Israelis, but I also have a very strong opinion about what the Palestinians’ rights are, and our responsibilities and our opportunities to live together and our commitment to live together if we really want to live in peace.

I see it as a positive aspect of my development that I was able to see both sides. Though I belong now to one side, I have to see both sides because I came from the outside.

Q: Have you met other German-born children of former Nazi soldiers who explored their identity as you did?

A: I think there were different journeys that everybody undertook. Very few took the radical step that I did. I not only broke with my family, but I broke with my culture and with my national identity and left everything behind and became an Israeli and took Israeli citizenship and dropped my German citizenship – it’s a very radical step. But there are different ways of dealing. For example, one of the German students that I met committed himself to work with Holocaust survivors, volunteering in Israeli hospitals and old-age homes. Very few take the final step of conversion.

Q: What should we ask and expect from second- and third-generation Germans?

A: I left Germany 28 years ago and lived outside Europe all that time, visiting Germany as a “tourist.” But I really came back to Germany very recently – just a few months ago – when I was invited to talk about my past in my home town. I spoke to mostly non-Jewish audiences: school groups, university groups, a group of Catholic priests. I learned from these encounters that there is a generation of change in a positive way. Germans today feel responsible, but not guilty. You can’t expect people to feel guilty forever and you can’t force people to feel guilty about something they personally never did. That’s very un-Jewish. But they feel responsible and want to know how they can carry the responsibility forward.

The younger generation, for example, is very well educated about the past, but they are not feeling directly responsible anymore and should not either. But they appreciate a personal account from somebody who belonged to German culture and out of guilt, shame, or conviction, became something else.

Something I tell my American friends over and over again is not to approach the second and third-generation Germans with guilt questions like “How do you feel about the Holocaust?” or “What did your grandparents do during the Holocaust?” That can only bring negative reactions because people feel defensive and cornered. That’s the wrong way to approach it.

One should find out how the experience of the past translates into a better future and better behavior. For example, fighting for human rights, fighting for democracy and against racism and stereotypes.

Q: What is the message that you will bring to your talks in Connecticut?

A: We should be aware that our behaviors are often based on prejudgments and stereotypes. We have to ask ourselves how we can change that in our daily lives. For example, in our political debate, we’re more and more antagonizing and we tend to consider opponents as “them,” not as individuals, but as an amorphous mass – the “left,” the “right,” the “fascists,” the “progressives.”

Unfortunately, that diminishes our ability to resolve conflicts. With that attitude, it’s as if we have a hammer in our hand, so everything looks like a nail. That’s the way we learn to deal with conflict, instead of learning a mechanism for conflict management or resolution. Conflict resolution behavior transcends our own fears, prejudices, and stereotypes and meets the “other” in an open way.

So I’m always supporting transcultural encounters designed to help participants understand each other and to avoid acting on one’s favorite “‘anti’ du jour.” Let’s start listening to what the other side has to say and then ask questions and allow them to see that you are a human being too, with concerns and fears that you want to deal with. Most important, allow the other side to see that you’re interested in a dialog, not in a conflict. That’s the kind of behavior that we have to teach and if we don’t, we’re deluding each other that violence and strength are the only ways to resolve conflict.

Dr. Bernd Wollschlaeger in Connecticut: Dr. Wollschlaeger will be guest speaker at the 32nd Annual Fairfield Holocaust Commemoration on Wednesday, April 29, 7:30 p.m., at First Church Congregational, 148 Beach Road, Fairfield. For information visit fairfieldholocaustcommemoration.org.

Voices of Hope will present “An Evening with Dr. Bernd Wollschlaeger” on Thursday, May 14, 5:30 p.m., at The Emanuel Synagogue, 160 Mohegan Dr., West Hartford. For information (860) 727-5771, jfact@mcmgmt.com.