Storytellersunplugged

By Janet Berliner

In November I promised more of STONES. Here it is. Happy Hannumas. –Janet

My half-brother, David, whom I have yet to meet in person, was for some years a member of Ha-Mosad le-Modi’in u-le-Tafkidim Meyuhadim, The Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations better known as simply Mosad. Mosad is one of several agencies responsible for intelligence collection, counter-terrorism and covert action in Israel.

My only contribution can be with words.

From Israel, I travelled to Berlin to visit my mother, who was at that time working for Die Mahnung (The Warning), the newspaper arm of the League of the Persecuted of the Nazi Regime. Through them, the search for survivors continues, as does the vigilance against anti-semitism. This continuing campaign rests mostly in the hands of an incredible elderly woman, Dr. Rehfeld Waltraud, herself not a Jew but a lifelong fighter against prejudice and racial injustice. In the newspaper’s small offices in a prewar building on Mommsenstrasse, the battle against Who Cares and It Never Happened goes on. A week later, my mother attended a religious service at the rebuilt temple in Oranienburg, near the first of the forced labor camps. While she was at that service, here in the United States where all races should be united against bigotry, Reverend Farrakahn was televised spewing hatred at the Jews.

Then the Wall between East and West Berlin came down and the world celebrated. I wanted to walk the few blocks to the Kuferstendamm and witness the partying, but my mother was adamant. I was to stay in the flat with her, door locked against intruders.

“Ich bin der einzige Jude in diesem GebŠude,” she said, as if I didn’t know she was the only Jew in the building. What I didn’t know was why that was especially significant that evening.

“When the people in the building are angry,” she said,

“they turn on me.”

She was right; I had seen them do it and she was right, too, about their anger. The East Germans were already claiming reparations, pensions, and medical care, all of which would come out of the pockets of the West Berliners. The Westerners were claiming family property in the East, which took up the time of the courts. The cost of freedom for the East Germans was high and elderly West Berliners were the ones who were going to suffer for it.

Soon after returning to America, I received a letter from my brother David who was living in a small town not far from Vienna. He had become an antique dealer, and through his business had come into possession of the collected volumes of circulars (Rundschrieben) sent to banks and bank officers ordering the seizures of Jewish property and money. These circulars include propaganda informing the bank officers how the seizures will ensure that Germany controls the finances of the world and explaining step-by-step how and where to take the money and property and where to send it into hiding. They cover the years 1934-1944 and into April of 1945 with the exception of 1935, 1937, and 1938. According to the chief archivist at the Landesarchiv in Berlin, only a small portion of these documents exist in the German archives.

David had bought these papers with every penny he had plus loans from his bank. His life had been threatened because it was clear he intended to expose them, so it was foolish to make them public over there, on his own. The documents included minute details of the Austrian involvement. He has been in touch with the World Jewish Congress and with the Jerusalem Post, who had said they would help him by making the matter public–after he had–as they put it–the ear of someone in political power.

At that moment, Deputy Treasury Secretary Eizenstat was in Austria to assist in negotiations for reparations from the Austrian government and businesses. While the German government has been very open about its attempts to make restitution for its past, the Austrians have been much less accepting of responsibility.

Acting as my mouthpiece, my dear friend and agent Robert contacted the U.S. Holocaust Information offices and spoke with a Mr. Becker who works with Mr. Bindenagel, the director of the office. Bindenagel reported directly to Deputy Secretary Eizenstat. He promised to have somebody in Eizenstat’s party in Austria contact my brother the following day. Meanwhile, I stayed up practically around the clock translating what I could of the beaurocratic language in what were later to become ‘The Berliner Documents.’

The documents comprised thousands of pages. Here is one small excerpt:

(These papers are) described as documentation of the practices and activities of the National Socialists in Germany and occupied territories, specifically including complete archives of “Rundschreiben der Wirtschaftsgruppe Privates Bankgewerbe” for the years 1934, 1936, 1939-1944, and continuing through April 1945, plus additional documentation yet to be catalogued and described.

Permission to Seize Property

1) Under the Revocation of German Citizenship, the Interior Minister has come to an agreement with the Foreign Minister as published on 13 February, 1941 (German Reich Announcement number 38, 14 Feb. 1941) the laws governing the recall from Naturalization and the revocation of German Citizenship from 14 July, 1933 in combination with the proclamation concerning the revocation of German Citizenship and the recall of the recruitment to German Citizenship on the Eastern border from 11 July 1939, the below named sought after German Citizens and they have permission to lie in the seizure:

“And they have permission to lie in the seizure. “

This is an official order to locate and capture the listed people and seize their belongings and assets, through whatever means necessary.

History knows the Nazi Terror as a racist, nationalistic assault on Jews and Gypsies. The purpose behind the attacks, we are told, was to purify Germany and the world. But was that the sole reason?

Very few people realize the extent of organization in the National Socialist regime. Only those who have been deeply involved in the study of its history realize that the banks were under strict Nazi control, and that they worked in concert with the Siechereitzpolizei (Security Police) to seize and redistribute the fortunes and possessions of Jews and others who were declared non-Germans. The National Socialists regularly sent circulars, Rundschreiben, to the officers of banks in Germany and German controlled territories listing the names, addresses, dates of birth, and other pertinent information about people who had been declared non-German. The banks were ordered to seize and transfer the assets of these people for the good of the Reich, or at least the good of the members of the German Economic Committee.

Until recently, only a small proportion of these documents were known to have survived. The banks were not supposed to save them. However, a cache including the complete archives of these circulars for the years 1934, 1936, and 1939 through April 1945 surfaced. The story these archives tell is not one of racial hatred, but of massive thievery and greed hidden behind the trappings of nationalism. Among other additions to history’s view of the Nazis, the circulars give detailed instructions on how the Hitler Youth leaders should encourage their young members to start savings accounts at the banks, and how the banks should explain to those same children why that money was taken and given to them, i.e., for the greater glory of the Reich.

I did everything I could to raise interest and consciousness, including handing the papers to Geraldo Rivera’s assistant and talking to Geraldo himself about them when he was here in Vegas, doing a poker gig. Nobody gave enough of a damn to want to learn more or help to make them public.

As a last resort, assisted by my Robert and David, I made contact with a Dr. Dettmer of the Landesarchiv. Talk at the time was that Saur Verlag should publish the volumes (+2,000 pages each), then the Landesarchiv acquire the originals. Dr. Juergen Matthaus, a renowned archivist, was sent by the Holocaust Museum in DC to examine the documents.

David’s search for these documents had taken twelve years. By then, I had been involved for two years.

In the end, K.G Saur Verlag put the papers on microfiche and printed a few copies, one for David and another for Yad Vashem, to whom we donated the information on behalf of the Berliner family.

But wait, there’s more.

During the course of his digging, David found a last will and testament recorded by Paul Berliner, one of our father’s brothers. The will left everything he had to be shared equally by his brothers or their progeny. At the time he wrote the will, he owned a large clothing factory in Berlin. In 1939, the Nazis took the factory and everything in it.

Eleven years ago, at this writing, David applied to the German government for reparations. They told him what documentation he needed. No matter what he gave them–my birth certificate, our father’s birth certificate, a lock of my hair–it was never enough.

Last week we were told that probably, in a few months, we would be told what money we would get and when.

Unless we die first.

It boggles the mind to think of how many Jews are being treated in this manner. Now. In the year 2006. As for how much we’ll get, if and when we’ll get it, that’s anybody’s guess.

So to anybody who says, “Things have changed,” I say this: Not all that much.

Not even here, in Las Vegas.

Recently, I (a 5′2″ weakling in a wheelchair) told a 6′2″ truck driver that he would have to stop making racial slurs–in this case against Mexicans–or see me in the parking lot. So what if he beat me to a pulp; the point would have been made.

My challenge stopped the man’s mouth but the incident proved to me again that the battle against the worst of the human spirit is not over. And since that is so, it becomes clear what we must do. While we must not stop talking and writing and making films, we must also be brave enough to make acts of injustice accessible by way of the new mechanics…be it by way of internet and CD-Rom, tours of the Museum of Tolerance….

We must watch and weep.

We must read and learn.

And we must make sure that it never happens again.

Let’s see if we can do that this coming year.