Young Israel's New Love Affair with Germany

[Skybird]

The people, as usual, are ways ahead of the politicians.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...828302,00.html

But the question remains whether a partner from Germany is appropriate for an Israeli. It's an issue debated in many Israeli families these days. Not surprisingly, now that more Israelis are traveling to Germany, they are also meeting more Germans -- and falling in love. Hebrew courses in Tel Aviv are packed with non-Jewish foreigners, including many Germans learning their partner's language. In fact, the courses are so full that extra classes for non-Jewish immigrants have been introduced. At the same time, many Israelis are learning German, and the language courses at the Goethe Institut are more popular than ever.
(...)
The interest is so great that, for nearly three years now, Israeli volunteers have even been working in Germany -- at day care centers, museums and youth centers. They are not only interested in exploring the past, but also in adding a new experience, and a new place of residence, to the present. Many of them simply yearn to experience something different and, after completing their military service, have decided to travel to Berlin rather than Goa.

This is very different from the experiences of German volunteers in Israel. They still go in droves, roughly 1,000 every year, and they're sometimes disappointed when they find themselves alone with their thoughts of atonement. The Israelis are simply not interested in constantly talking about the Holocaust.
(...)
This new, more relaxed way of dealing with Germany is also changing Israel, and it can be felt in many places, such as at one of the popular "Berlin parties" in Tel Aviv. Sometimes all it takes is a private apartment temporarily transformed into a club, with a bonfire on the roof and, one floor down, a steaming-hot dance floor. Here, all the bartenders wear East German army-surplus caps, a DJ from Berlin spins the tracks and there is a signpost bearing such Berlin place names as Zoologischer Garten, Hamburger Bahnhof and X-Berg.

This enthusiasm has almost become a craze of sorts. What else could explain the fact that Hans Fallada's Berlin novel "Every Man Dies Alone" was at the top of the Israeli best-seller list for a number of weeks last year -- 64 years after it was first published? And what could explain that it's no longer unusual for a German tourist buying an ice cream in Tel Aviv to get involved in a lively discussion about the films of German director Fatih Akin?
(...)
An Israeli journalist recently applied for a German passport. It will be his third nationality. Yermi Brenner, 32, is already an Israeli and an American. Soon, he will also be a German, as promised by Article 116, Paragraph 2 of the Basic Law, Germany's constitution, which states that people whose citizenship was revoked under the Nazis have a right to a German passport, as do their descendents. In the past, he would have been called a traitor. Those who applied for a German passport did so shamefacedly. Now, they tell their friends and are regarded with envy.
Since the turn of the millennium, there has been a rapid increase in the number of Israelis holding a German passport. For some, it's an insurance policy against war and terror; for others, it's a matter of convenience because it often does away with visa requirements. Still others see it as a belated victory. For Brenner, it's a matter of having options. And one of these options is being able to live in Germany someday, just as he is now planning to first study in New York.

Is it difficult to acquire the nationality of the perpetrators? It's a question that probably only a German could ask. Brenner personally doesn't ask himself this question.

It was only difficult for his father, who had to apply for German citizenship before his son could receive a German passport. His father is a typical representative of the second generation, someone who grew up in the shadow of the Holocaust and with his mother's silence. It wasn't until Yermi's grandmother died that the family found out more about her -- ironically, from a German researcher. She delved into the history of the grandmother, who was in Auschwitz and fled by jumping off a train and making her way to Berlin, where she was hidden by a German.
The German researcher has since become a family friend, and the grandson of the Auschwitz survivor has taken a German course in Bayreuth. He will soon become a German. And actually, he says, it all feels totally normal.

Normality is when no talk is spend anymore on this thing called normality.