A Jew Among the Germans

Each culture has their own way of identifying themselves to the public, usually through a way of tradition. African tribes use body piercings that most people wouldn't think as being comfortable, and Native Americans and Aborigines had many tattoos that would put any tattoo enthusiast to shame. The Jewish culture uses circumcision. The Halakha, a collection of Jewish religion laws, states that is obligatory for all male Jews to be circumcised on the eighth day of their birth, unless it is life threatening to do so. Marian Marzynski, who was born into a Jewish family, was not circumcised. This decision was not made because of a direct matter of health, or religious based laws, but because his life would be in danger if he had been.

Marian Marzynski is one of the survivors of the Halocaust. His mother and father ran from house to house, avoiding the Nazis when they were invading Warsaw. The family eventually made it into the Christian side of Poland, where they were safe for a while, until one day his father was murderd by the Nazis because his face looked "too Jewish". In the episode of Frontline I watched, Marzynski goes to Berlin to figure out if the generations that came after the Nazi generation could feel a "good guilt" toward their historical past, and if his own family, and other Jewish familes, could ever live in Germany and not feel scared. This all occured due to the fact that the German government announced that they would be building a memorial to all of the murdered Jews of Europe during the Halocaust.

On Marzynski's quest to find out if he could live among the Germans without being fearful, he questions the chosen artists and architects for the Halocaust memorial about their chosen design for the proposed memorial. He also questions the youngest generation of Germans after WWII about how they feel about the Halocaust. Most young adults answered with no shame or guilt; one even answered that they should be able to laugh about it because it is in the past and Germans know that they would never do that again. This leads Marzynski to believe that the memory of the Halocaust is diminishing, and he wonders if future generations will remember it at all.

During the few years that he visits Germany to figure out his questions, he states that his father would have wanted him to live in a Germany that didn't strike fear into the Jews. That would be his father's revenge, letting the Germans know that the Jews can live among them, no matter what the past, and not be scared by them again.

-Jade N. Amey