I Sleep in Hitler's Room (2 page)

The Muslim world, also covered and uncovered here, is the first chapter of a long story and sure to be followed by many others. The relationship between the Christian and Jewish worlds, methodically described below, is another example of the turmoil within us that is certain to affect us now and far into the future.

But we are affected not by war and politics alone; social phenomena make their mark as well. The birth of the iPad, for example, not only finds its way into this book but has had on our lives an impact that so far has been lasting. Then there are natural disasters, which no less than war or politics or social change deepens our understanding of the world over time. The volcanic ash cloud that hovered over our heads and plagued European skies in 2010, and which is discussed below, shares similarities with the subterranean eruption that led eventually to the nuclear disaster in Japan in 2011. In both cases we the people are players in a game of nature that we know almost nothing about.

But, truth be told, this is not why this book is presented to you today. These observations, as interesting as they may be, do not warrant the sweat that bringing this book to life exacted.

What drives me to see to it that this book is published can be summed up in one word: America. In the present political atmosphere, where for many of us human rights have attained the level almost of a religion, we can benefit from a reality check. Germany today is one of the most powerful economic powers in the world, a country that has bought many of our assets, including most of the American publishing industry—a country that exerts vast influence on us, a country that prides itself on having the best record of preserving human rights, a country that deems itself the best of democracies, a country many in America hold in highest regard and emulate, a country that this year reached the top of the Mainly Positive Influence chart in a BBC poll of “Countries’ Influence”—and yet, this is a country that has not changed since Hitler’s days in power. No, of course: Hitler does not rule Germany today, the Nazi party is outlawed, and Germany no longer exterminates Jews or gays. But Hitler, let us not forget, did not create the Holocaust, he simply operated in a social environment that invited it. The people were ready. Hitler, an Austrian nobody, stirred the pot of hate that had preceded him and his unsold paintings. The peoples’ hearts were with him, as they are today. The hate for the Jew then, and the hate of the Jew today, as described in this book, is the same exact hate.

Yes, I know, it’s a horrible thing to say, to accuse a whole nation of racism. But as horrible as it is to say this of a people, it’s manifold more horrible to find out that that this is the truth. I wish, from the bottom of my heart, that it were not the case, that the people of Germany, people I’ve always liked, were not what I found them to be.

Mr. Fest is just an example. There are many others like him. And you know it only when they get caught. People who have read Mr. Fest’s emails came out of the woodwork to share some little secrets with me. His messages, they say, point to a “Herrenrasse” (master race) mentality. They explain that he is a man who grew up in a household sympathetic to the Nazis. The late Joachim Fest, Alexander’s famous father, who served as an editor of infamous Nazi architect Albert Speer and wrote the biography of Adolf Hitler in which he hardly even mentioned the Holocaust, was indeed a controversial figure.

Some prominent Jews of the time, such as author Jurek Becker (author of the novel on which the movie versions were based,
Jakob der Lügner
, starring Armin Mueller-Stahl, and many years later, in the United States,
Jakob the Liar
, starring Robin Williams), would never accept an invitation to Mr. Joachim Fest’s home. Jurek refused to shake Joachim’s hand when both happened to be attending the same events; it was not, he said, a gesture of goodwill he would exchange with a Nazi.

But enough of Mr. Alexander Fest. He is, sadly, not the exception. I know because I witnessed many Fests.

As I write these lines, the Middle East is boiling over across many borders: Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, Bahrain, Syria, Yemen . . . as people demand the right to free speech. The West, ever eager to show its commitment to human rights, spares no bomb to kill those who stand in the way. It goes without saying that Arabs must pay with their lives to have free speech but Germans can suppress it and not lose a dime. Why are the Germans allowed to be pathetic censors while Arabs are forced to tell the truth? Who gave us in the West the right to kill others who are not really any worse than us?

Toward the end of correcting this injustice, in this book I tell the story of Germany today in the clearest, simplest, and most honest and straightforward way possible.

No. Not all people in Germany are bad. There are exceptions, but sadly not many. Yes, there are good people in Germany too, great men and women whom I’m proud to consider my friends. They inspire me, they challenge me, and I know I can trust them to be by my side if ever I need them. And indeed, it is also for their sake, in the name of my love for them, that I make this book public. No hate in a people will be extinguished if allowed to burn unchecked, no racism in a nation will disappear if allowed to be irrigated with the rain of silence, no German will survive the poison around him if the iron gate of censorship protects it and no Jew will survive if he keeps silent.

This is the history of humanity. This is the story of democracy. This is the essence of this book.

When I set out to travel the land of Germany, I didn’t think for one moment that it would end up as it did. In the worst of my nightmares I never imagined that the word
Jew
would be on the minds of so many people. What I hoped for when I started the journey through the Fatherland was “lots of fun.” Nobody ever warned me that Germany was a horrible place for a Jew. Nobody ever told me that I would finally understand why the Holocaust started there and nowhere else. Nobody prepared me for a gas chamber.

But luck, or misfortune, contributed to an interesting alignment of the stars when finally I arrived there. The deadly saga of the continuous hate between Israelis and Palestinians, coupled with the global financial crisis, happened to coincide with the World Cup, the one occasion when Germans feel quite comfortable about raising their national flag everywhere and repeatedly screaming “Deutschland” at the top of their lungs with utmost pleasure. It was against this background that many people were willing to reveal, with no fear, what is normally hidden in the deepest corners of their being. Israelis, they confidently told me, are “Nazis.” Jews, they said, are responsible for the global financial crisis. Who, they asked, controls the global markets? The Jews! 

The following pages tell of the people I met and what they said to me. Not all of it is about Jews. Some of it is about hotels, cars, tattoos, restaurants, churches, beer, heroin, soccer, gays and straights, financial markets and hot dogs. But “the Jew” creeps in every few pages. If the Germans have one obsession, it is “Jews.” They can’t stop talking, or thinking, of The Jew. I am thankful to each one of them for letting me inside their hearts and souls, and for allowing themselves to open for me the doors into their lives. Elated by their soccer aspirations, they were generous in their sharing. They were dreaming of winning the world title, and they felt safe to unveil what lurks inside them. I am not the message, nor do I want to be. All I am is the messenger. This book is not about me; it is about the people. It is not about the past, it is about the future of America and of the West.

Let truth stand.

Fall 2011

New York City

My original plan for 2010 was to spend the summer among the Hamas in Gaza. I was supposed to be there the year before, but in 2009 it didn’t work out. First the Palestinians said “Welcome!” and the Israelis said they wouldn’t let me cross the border. Then, by the time the Israelis finally changed their mind, the Palestinians changed theirs as well. It’s normal over there. This year I decided not to ask anybody and just show up, giving nobody a chance to play games.

I was totally ready. I even made sure that I had with me the private telephone numbers of leading figures in Hamas. They are the people who would help me, a good German, in case I got into trouble once I was on the other side of the border.

Am I German? Not really. But whenever I’m in an Arab territory I am in the habit of telling everybody that I’m German. No, this has nothing to do with philosophy or politics; it has to do with life. The other day, in Jordan, I asked one of my hosts what he would do if I were a Jew. He didn’t hesitate for a second and told me he would kill me on the spot. So I learned my lesson, and since that day I am German.

My Arab friends, Christian and Muslim alike, love me for this. “You are good people,” they tell me. “What you [Germans] did to the Jews was good.”

There’s one little problem in all this: I am not German. I come, if I may share this with you, from a Holocaust-surviving family. Most of my family, that of my father and that of my mother, died in the war. By German order. My father fled Europe as a baby, and my mother survived a concentration camp, what the Germans call KZ. I wonder what they would say if they saw me walking around, calling myself German.

What does it mean to be German, anyway?

I’ve tried on occasion to figure this out. It so happens that I’m a journalist, and one of the newspapers I frequently write for is the German
Die Zeit
, arguably the most prestigious of German media. It is through this paper that I’ve made an acquaintance with some German journalists, all very fine people, but those who can help me to understand what being “German” means are few. Yes, I also happen to be a political dramatist, and this brought me to Germany a few times when my plays were produced there. But, again, the number of people I met was too small to make me grasp the “German mentality,” if such exists. Yet no matter what, one thing I know: Germany might have killed my ancestors, but it saves my life. It’s my little German “complex,” I guess.

I think of this complex today as a German lady by the name of Julia who contacts me. She is from Rowohlt Verlag, one of the biggest publishing companies in Germany. She asks if I would like to come to Germany, travel around the country a few months, and write a book about my experiences. She tries to make it sound exciting, by telling me that she’s not looking for a research book or a travel guide. No, not that. What she’s looking for, she says, is a book of First Impressions. My first impressions. All up to me. My thoughts. A Jew from New York visiting Germany.

For quite some time now, perhaps as a result of my saying “I’m German” so often, I have had this little dream of buying a house in Berlin one day. A German like me, won’t you agree, should live in the capital. And if I accept Julia’s offer, which will require of me an extended stay of a few months there, I might get a sense of what it truly means to live in Germany—

Hi Julia, I’m coming.

My office is in midtown Manhattan, just opposite Penn Station, a place where many tourists stroll by. And in preparation for my upcoming tour, I make it my business to schmooze with some German tourists; maybe they can teach me a thing or two about their culture.

In general, Europeans are more political than Americans. They love to talk and argue politics, and Germans in particular are no different. I like it. I sit down to talk with a couple of German tourists. They teach me something very interesting today: “We [meaning Germans] are capitalists by force, unwilling capitalists, while you [Americans] are willing capitalists.” They love and hate America. They love the Beatles, they tell me. I don’t bother to remind them that the Beatles weren’t Americans. Why should I? They love the Americans they meet, they also tell me. And they love New York. Just love it. They are very much against Capitalism. Capitalism is bad. But beer is good. I order Diet Coke with ice, they order beer. They look at my ice and say, “Very American!” For them if you order Coke with ice you are an American. And this is the second thing I learn today, who I am: An American. Not a German, an Arab, or Jew. An American. Good to know.

My ticket paid for, suitcases at the ready, and three hours before my flight is scheduled for departure, the booking agency calls. “Don’t go to the airport,” they say. “Your flight has been cancelled.” Cancelled? Yes. Some stupid mountain erupted in Iceland, sending ash clouds above Europe. I thought we were done with ash clouds in the skies of Europe after the last war, but it turns out that this is different: This one is very dangerous for planes. Or something like that; I’m no engineer. All I know is this: There’s an ash cloud standing between me and Europe, between the Capitalists and the Unwilling Capitalists. And the airspace of Europe is half grounded. I rebook a flight for three days later, taking whatever ticket I can find that gets me over to Europe. Cost: $917. It’s about a hundred dollars more than the one cancelled, but that’s OK. A few hours later, this same ticket gets a little more expensive. Capitalism, you might call it. Lufthansa will be happy to take me to the same destination for $9,800. But Lufthansa is German, so that’s probably not capitalism.

Three days later, my plane takes off. I beat the ash cloud. Members of my family got lost in the ashes of Europe, but I beat the ash cloud. I am an American hero. I will conquer Europe! Germany will lie at my feet like an open book. This is the plan, the immediate plan.

I am now in the belly of the plane. In four hours I land in Rome. From there I fly to Budapest. From Budapest, to Hamburg. A slightly circuitous route to Germany, but it’s a sure way around the stupid clouds. Jews have been wandering thousands of years and we know the best and safest ways to do it. And yes, finally, this American hero, a world-traveling Jew, lands in Rome. Safely. Securely. On time. Perfect. I walk over to my next plane. I am at the gate. The plane is not. I am the only person at the gate. Everybody else, I soon discover, is on the other side of the airport. I go there. I am not a police surveyor and I don’t really know how to count people, but my cautious estimate is that there are about ten to twenty million. I walk over and try to strike up a conversation with them. They would be glad to talk. Do I speak Italian? Yes, I am a professor of Latin.