YOU SAID WHAT--GERMAN CITIZENSHIP?

 Being a second generation survivor* or a 2G'er has been a journey. Long before I heard the term, I knew I was one. Actually, for as long as I can remember, my grandparents' and parents' stories have reverberated in my head. Since young childhood, I sensed secrets and repressed emotions and memories swirling around my home. Long before I knew what to do with the information that spewed forth erradically from relatives, it had been lodged inside my psyche. The questions to ask your parents form on your lips early on. They are answered over the years but often not. Frequently, I have forgotten to ask vital questions or did not even know what I wanted or should know. 

Fast forward to the present--after writing two books, visiting my parents and grandparents birthplaces, engaging in endless discussions, researching, reading books, watching movies, and confiding in my sister--I have added information to the virtual tome--Our Story. 

Connie, my sister, and I have had bronze plaques set into the pavement of Berlin and Frankfurt to indelibly mark the murder of our greatgrandmother and great aunt. The governments of Germany and China have memorialized my family and others like them in numerous constructions built of stone.

Today, I became a German citizen at the Embassy in Washington D.C.  Just like that--no interrogation, no Sara beside my name, no stamp Jude or big red J on top of my photo. The consular representative smiled and laughed and was glad to have me join the Bundesrepublik Deutschland. I said to myself, oh she may have Jewish ancestors look at that nose, but she wore a small gold cross. 

Naturally, I accomplished the arduous, frustrating, bureaucratic task--during the pandemic--for my family and the millions who lost their citizenship and became stateless. Connie will become a German citizen in a few weeks. It was a tag team effort. We shared documents. Sometimes I gained a foothold in the system, other times she did--one step forward and two backwards. I am still waiting on a document from the U.S. government, no longer needed. Eventually three German civil servants in Cologne Germany, San Francisco, and Washington D.C. decided that, yes, these two women have proved their case.

Germany decided to naturalize descendents whose parents lost their citizenship between 1933 and 1945 and were stateless as a result of the actions of the Third Reich. The law was The Restoration of German Citizenship (Article 116). 

I never thought about the designation of stateless, in this case the result of a fascist government's heinous actions. Without citizenship, a stateless individual has no legal rights or access to any services or privileges. We know the fate of the stateless Germans during World War II and after. 

When Hitler took away the citizenship of the Jews in 1938, it was clearly a sign to leave immediately. The action signaled that Jews were non-persons, no rights whatsoever. The Nazis changed the names of these previously upstanding citizens--women and girls became Sara, and men and boys became Israel. Miraculously, the lucky ones left Germany because they could afford the criminal manipulation that the Nazis served up. In other words, my grandfathers had enough money to be able to buy tickets after they had lost everything. 

So when people squirm and make faces about Germans, I am a citizen. And I stand proudly. And I know why I decided to claim my right.

* A second generation survivor is the child of a survivor of the Holocaust. 

© 2022 Karen Levi

IN MEMORY OF SYD JACOBS

 I am privileged to have known Sydney (Syd) Jacobs for many years. She accomplished more in a wheelchair than most able bodied people. I did not know her in her twenties and thirties when she swam to international reknown in the Para Olympics. Most probably, she demonstrated a can-do attitude before the climbing accident which claimed use of her legs. 

Not to be forgotten is her husband, Mark Otto, wonderful father and professional in his own right. Without him, life would have been far different for Syd. Countless times, I saw him carry Syd up and down stairs when a place was not retrofitted for wheelchairs. Speaking of wheelchairs, Syd never to my knowledge used a motorized one. She donned car racing gloves and wheeled up and down hills and rocky pavements. Syd went where no other woman I knew went before. No chore, responsibility, or event slowed her down. I felt honored to be by her side when I accompanied her to lunch or dinner in a restaurant or to canvas for a candidate. Social activist and fierce advocate for her two children, I have watched her at work.

I met her through a parents' group called Latin America Parents Association (LAPA). She and I joined at the same time, since our older children are five months apart. We were active in the organization. She became president and started an innovative culture camp. 

This was the 1990's when we Boomer couples, still idealistic, desired to be parents. Many of us had tried infertility treatments without success. What better way to help underprivileged and underserved populations than to adopt unwanted children. After arduous home studies in the United States, we traveled to Central and South America to endure hardships for our infant children, tolerating unsanitary conditions, long stays, and confinement by corrupt politicians.

Unfortunately, international adoption has ceased due to conspiracy theories and bad actors, resulting in laws which made it nearly impossible to adopt. It should be noted that those who created the new laws had no stake in the process--just a group of white men thinking they were morally upright. I am certain none of them witnessed the poverty in Latin America first hand. 

International adoption, which began in the 1950's with Korean babies, had its heydey in the late 1980's through the 1990's. Now, international adoption is merely a figment of our imaginations. If it was a roaring stream, it is now a dry creek bed. Children languish everywhere. Embryo freezing and surrogacy have replaced adoption. 

Syd and I chose differently regarding education for our children, nonetheless I admired her integrity and tenacity. We shared the value of honesty and seeing through the nonsense. We could talk for hours which we did when we went out together. 

I will remember the play dates in parks, the shared Jewish holidays, and the LAPA events with fondness. In the 1990's and early 2000's, LAPA was my family, a community of parents and children who had a dream to be parents and improve the lives of children born to unspeakable poverty. We were liberal, cool, open-minded, down-to-earth people who valued our choices. That time, as well as Syd, is gone. We have forgotten what we parents did and why. 

Son Kory

Pictures of Syd Jacobs with her family and my children over the years.

©2022 Karen Levi