East German Jews See a Dark Side to Changes

EAST BERLIN â€”  The few Jews remaining in East Germany are viewing the tumultuous rush of events here by “laughing with one eye and crying with the other,â€� according to a prominent Jewish community leader.

And that German expression--conveying a bittersweet reaction to the fast-moving political and economic changes--is appropriate for several reasons, said Peter Fischer, a sociologist who is secretary of an alliance of East Germany’s tiny and far-flung Jewish communities.

Fischer, who said he has recently received threatening letters, believes anti-Semitism is on the rise here. Incidents of ugly graffiti in Jewish cemeteries have increased, leaflets with anti-Semitic overtones have been handed out, underground parties were held on Adolf Hitler’s 100th birthday last April and songs that smack of neo-Nazism have been sung publicly, he said.

“I’m afraid that it is a historical condition,� Fischer, a compact, outgoing man, said in a recent interview in the office of the Berlin Jewish Community, not far from the imperial German capital center. “Hatred of communism, which we are seeing demonstrated daily, is invariably followed by hatred of Jews. It’s going to happen again.�

Fischer said that in Germany, Jews often have been identified with communism and that non-practicing Jews have held high posts in the Communist Party.

“In principle, we are very happy with the new changes,� he said. “But we have certain worries. The new openness allows voices to be expressed which are against us.�

He said individual Jews had taken part in the demonstrations that were instrumental in bringing down the regime of Erich Honecker last month. But, he noted, “we didn’t participate as a community.�

That would have been difficult in any event because the Jewish community is so small--about 200 members in East Berlin and 200 more widely scattered in cities such as Dresden and Leipzig.

Indeed, it is a Jewish community without a rabbi. The last one, an American, departed last year with hard feelings all around because “he preferred to be politically provocative,� Fischer said.

Ironically, the dramatic changes that worry Fischer come at a time when Judaism is experiencing a rebirth of interest.

“Jews are able to come out from the shadows. We had been put in a glass cabinet like this,� he said, pointing to a sideboard holding Jewish works of art, to indicate they had been protected as fragile objects.

Fischer said he is worried about the revival of right-wing nationalism, not just in West Germany but in the Communist state, a fact that he said has purposely been kept quiet by authorities.

He said he also was troubled recently when he saw a group of East German youths returning from a night in West Berlin in an elated mood singing, “Deutschland, Deutschland,� with what he called the “same intonation� as Nazis singing “Sieg heil, Sieg heil.�

As one of its priorities, the Jewish community hopes to get back the official records that the Nazis plundered from their library here and that are still being held in the East German archives department in Potsdam.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles has been seeking access to Gestapo files that it says are still held by the East Berlin regime, which would be useful in tracking down war criminals who remain at large.

But Fischer said the local Jewish community is more concerned about retrieving its archives for the German-Hebrew library, records the Nazis grabbed for use in deporting Jews to the death camps.