Nelson Mandela

I am adding my bit to the Mandela, or Madiba, - as the cognoscenti now seem to refer to him – festival. I did not watch the funeral and I am not really interested in the whole song and dance around it. But I do have two questions.

A partial answer to the first question would have been in the Mandela file that the South African previous regime’s secret service held and doubtlessly destroyed in the last days of Apartheid.

Even more interesting than the stuff in the file is what was too risky to include in the file to begin with, such as thoughts the Apartheid government may have entertained of getting rid of the prisoner they held for 27 years. Was there a plan to kill him? Was it ever discussed? Why did they hold back?

The Apartheid regime may have been so sure of itself that nothing was considered too risky to record. There is unlikely to be a file lying around anywhere but there must be people who know and I expect that if the information is not yet in the public domain, at some point it will be.

Not to be found in the files is the answer to my second question: Where would South Africa be, had there not been Nelson Mandela? 

The Long Shadows of the Past

A very small number of Jews settled in Germany immediately or within a few years after the Holocaust. For their decision to live in Germany, they were ostracised by their Jewish brothers throughout the world. They lived in Germany, hated the country that was still infested with Nazis, and felt guilty for being there. They brought up their children with the notion that their stay in Germany was only temporary.

I spent the last year and a half researching and interviewing the grandchildren of those people: 3^rd generation Jews in Germany. I wanted to find out whether for the 3^rd generation Germany is finally a homeland? Or do they - like their parents used to proclaim - consider Israel as their homeland? What is the role of Israel in their lives? And what does being Jewish mean to these predominantly secular Jews?

The resultant book, Die Schatten der Vergangenheit sind noch lang: Junge Juden über ihr Leben in Deutschland, just got published and had a very successful launch in Berlin three weeks ago. The book launch was followed by six reading events in different German cities. Further reading events have been scheduled for January, March and April of next year.

Interview on German TV

If you have missed yesterday’s Kulturzeit programme on 3sat, you can watch the short item (including an interview) they did on my new book, Die Schatten der Vergangenheit sind noch lang, HERE.

Enjoy!

I want some EU money too

The Vatican has recently announced that new LED lights are to be installed in the Sistine Chapel. There are benefits all round: the new lights will produce less heat than traditional light bulbs so that it will be possible to better illuminate the chapel and we will all get a better view of the magnificent art. The Vatican will save on its air-conditioning bill because of the reduced heat. Moreover, the LED is cheaper and the Vatican will save 60% of the lighting costs.

Installing the new system will cost 1.9 million Euro and here’s the rub: for some reason the wise men in Brussels have decided to subsidise the (non-member and cash rich) Vatican with €870,000 EU money for this project.

Bringing in hell, as in what-the-hell, is unlikely to shock the Vatican. They are used to more exciting sins than an occasional mentioning of hell. Not even what-the-f*** will cause a stir. 

Could the explanation be the granting of an umbrella absolution to the corrupt apparatus of the European Union? But the Vatican, I imagine, would have charged more than 870,000 Euros for that service.

Or are EU officials just like the girl-who-can’t say-no? You apply for a grant and get one. In that case, how about one for me? 

Shock counter Shock

I like the idea of Germany granting asylum to Snowden.

But they won't.

The Joys of Facebook

Facebook is not only about people showing off their own or their children's bodies. 

Yesterday, a Facebook “friend” of mine, informed his “friends” that he would be going to an event at a kneipe, a sort of a pub, in the NeuKölln district of Berlin. The thing is - I hardly know the chap, my Facebook friend - and he would not have emailed me or phoned me to alert me to the fact that he was going to that specific event. But, it sounded interesting and I went there too. 

And it was worth it, despite the fact that I came out after two hours smelling of ten thousand cigarettes. They were all at it, rolling one cigarette after the other and it was just pure boring tobacco. Evidently the laws about smoking in public spaces are not very strictly adhered to. 

It was a sort of a talk-show, in which Peter Wensierski, an interesting and charismatic Spiegel journalist, spoke about the years in which he reported from the former DDR (East Germany). 

Things I heard at dinners in Germany

A man I just met at a dinner party told me that half of Berlin’s real estate was now in Jewish hands. I tried to suggest that this was somewhat exaggerated but he was certain of it. Since unification, he told me, they have bought packages of tens of thousands of flats in the city.

“I have no problem with it”, he hastened to add, fearing that I might think him an anti-Semite. “On the contrary, they are clever, they have a good nose for it”, he explained and “I try to follow the market to also do a deal now and then and it is useful to know what they are doing.”

Different party – different people, similar sentiment: a German academic in her forties, who has spent a couple of years in the USA, told me that Jewish academics look after each other. I questioned her statement and she was “certain” that if a Jewish researcher has his or her grant cut, his Jewish friends will help him out for a while, out of their own budgets, until things are sorted. “No”, she said “not forever, but for a year or two.”

Die Schatten der Vergangenheit sind noch lang

The new book, Die Schatten der Vergangenheit sind noch lang: Junge Juden über ihr Leben in Deutschland,  is due out later this month.

First reading events:

Berlin - 26 November

Bonn - 28 November

Freiburg - 3 December

The Germans’ Love for Authoritative Reich-Ranicki

The formula was unbeatable: You mix a very intelligent and very well read and knowledgeable Jewish holocaust survivor, whose family was murdered by the Germans and who chose to come in and live in post-War Germany, with drawn to authority Germans, grateful to Jewish intellectuals who settle in their country and you get a success story. Marcel Reich-Ranicki, a Polish Jew who moved to Germany in 1956 and became the country foremost literary critic died yesterday, at the ripe old age of 93. Germany is in mourning.

For years, Germans referred to the man as their Literaturpabst, their pope for matters literary. What tantrums of jealousy the man at the Vatican must have had because of the total deference this Jewish –of all things – so-called literary pope enjoyed. Reich-Ranicki instructed the Germans what was right and what was wrong, which book is good and which is not.  On a regular basis, in his TV programmes and in his newspaper columns, he told them – often in the most abusive language - and shouted (his version of hell?) at them when disobeyed. They adored this Jew who shouted at them. Talk of role reversal.  

Manuscript Delivered

The manuscript for my next book, Die Schatten der Vergangenheit sind noch lang, has finally been delivered to the publisher.

The book that is based on interviews with young German Jews of the 3^rd generation after the Holocaust is due to come out at the end of November.