1982, near Nethanja, near the MediterMediterraneansrael (names are changed to protect people)
Monica: „ you know why I have invited you to my house here in this great farming community?“
I: „We were hitchhiking my friend here next to me and you thought we are nice people. By the way, the dinner we just had with you was excellent. And out here on your veranda, it is, so nice, so quiet. The lights in the other houses around create a very peaceful atmosphere.“
Monica: „That is not the reason, my dear. I love Germans and I admire them for what they have achieved after World War Two, the Wirtschaftswunder. I really . I also like to invite them to my home but…I must be certain they were born only after the war.“
Karin: „Our both parents were no Nazis and never did anything wrong to Jewish people or others.“
I: „My father was born in 1939 and my mother in 1938. By the end of the war, both were six respectively seven years old. Not old enough to be in the Hitler Jugend or Bund Deutscher Mädels the youth organizations of the Third Reich.“ (Germany had 1. The Holy Roman Empire of German Descent and 2. German Kaiserreich before the 3. Third Reich)
Monica: „I know all that. But as for me I can only invite Germans to my home surely born after the last World War. That is how I am, sorry.“
We both young Germans students left her late that night. Before heading back to our Kibbutz Ginegar founded in 1922 the second oldest Kibbutz of Isreal between Afulla and Haifa I took a minute of reflection and asked myself can a people like the Jews who suffered through history so immensely, especially in Europe and Germany ever treat their enemies differently from what they had gone through or is the pain so much in their blood they would find it hard to forgive and find different ways to handle their enemies. At that moment I was very skeptical but open to observing history unfolding for my mind to be corrected.
My young German and foreign students (Syria, Turkey, Iran, and Afghanistan) say the time must come when enough is enough. They argue their generation is not responsible for the wrongs of their parents especially as they were not living during the time of the Holocaust and could not have as resistance fighters changed the situation in any way. They feel responsible for their individual or collective mistakes as a generation born around the turn of the century and that they have to speak out for the now to create a future for themselves and their future children. To be held financially or morally responsible for their grandparents’ actions and inactions is not for them. Always to honor the truth and facts as they occurred certainly this is a moral obligation they claim but to be held „hostage“ in the tradition of sacrifices they refuse. They put forward examples of the slave trade in the USA or the killings of native Indians at the hands of European settlers, the Portuguese especially the Spanish Conquistares in South America, the Pharaos and their slaves from surrounding kingms, the French and their colonial activities on the African continent or under Napoleon across Europe. They raise the question of how many generations must have passed before a nation can freely speak again without the past chocking their words towards silence.
Former German Chancellor Olaf Scholz was quick to fully support Israel in the Hamas-Israel war without balanced and reflected statements putting Germany into the position of a credible mediator to help end the war and the humanitarian crisis. Months into the conflict European Leaders and Olaf Scholz among them changed rhetoric and approach. They tried to advise PM Nethanjau to kill Hamas leaders and fighters behind the human shield of innocent civilians and allow humanitarian aid to enter the Gaza Strip; not to kill innocent civilians and make them be on the run all the time. They failed to state that Jews protesting against their government are different from Zionists supporting the new massive offense on Hamas fighters and civilians. Olaf Scholz did not learn from the Third Reich all the lessons as most Germans were not Nazis while a significant group were wholehearted Nazis and other opportunists. This principle is reflected on the streets of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.
The new German Chancellor Friedrich Merz declared on May 14th, 2025 it must be possible for the PM of Israel Netanjahu to visit Germany even though the ICC in Den Haag has issued an arrest warrant against Netanjahu. This would imply Germany as an ICC member states engages in cherry-picking when they like the actions of the ICC they fully support their judgments if their decisions are not in the interest of the German government they have a right to ignore them. If the arrest warrant would not be honoured Germany subsequently must leave the ICC. This fundamental change in German politics and German-Israel relations finds a stone wall and STOP sign in the German youth, especially among German students.
Most likely this situation will not occur but it shows a new dimension and disconnect between the coalition government, Germans, and the German youth.
