 To learn and remember, it's a month long program that we sponsor with the support of various partners, the Holocaust Museum and Memorial Museum in one of them, the San Antonio Public Library Foundation, being the other partner. And it's, we're now a fourth year that we are bringing this program to you and we're very excited that it's tonight's keynote speaker who will be formally introduced shortly. And we're presenting this to you this evening. Let me thank some folks that were instrumental in getting this program to the point that it is not it's growing, it has grown for the last four years. There will be many people that have worked up front and behind the scenes. I want to acknowledge the Holocaust Memorial Museum again for their partnership. This year they hosted our opening event for this program and so we're very grateful for that. I want to thank the Jewish Federation. They're providing the refreshments for this evening. And we also have donors that have contributed financial support consistently for this program and I would like to recognize them at this time. I'll start with Carmen and Stephen Goldberg, who are also members of the Library Foundation. Carmen and Stephen, thank you so much for your generous support. Dale McNeil, who is also our Assistant Director for Public Services, he's one of the donors, brought by Samuel and Lynn Stahl, I've been here. Thank you so much for your support. And of course, Betty and Jack Betzler, thank you. Betty and Jack, we appreciate your support of this program. So the folks that work behind the scenes, back from the Holocaust Memorial Museum, Juan Agua Padua, who's the Director of Education, and from our staff, leaving the way from the Latin and Mendoza, who's our Library Services Administrator. But we have so many other folks that work behind the scenes to make this possible. I'd like to recognize a couple of folks that are here. Karen Mattson, who is the President of the Friends of the San Antonio Public Library, Karen. Thank you, Karen, for being here. Ron Nick Cherwin, who's the Jewish Federation CEO of the Museum Commission. Commission chair, and Judy Lechritz, Director of the Museum. And Richard Plante, Jewish Federation Board President, because I know we all want to get the problem started. My group friend and his partner, Halloween Esco, and I met each other about five years ago and we started talking about this program that would help educate and enlighten the community about what happened at the Holocaust and the dangers of not being inclusive and not valuing differences and promoting tolerance. And so we used to be the National Day of Remembrance as a taking point to start this program, a program that we would offer throughout the library system. We have a large footprint, we have 28 locations, and two more that will be coming online later this year. So we felt that we could reach out into the community and offer programs that talk about the Holocaust and the tragedy there, and that we could learn from that and that we emphasize what happened there that we could teach not only young and the old but the whole community about appreciating each other and loving each other, especially in these times that even today there's still a lot of hate that's being expressed out there. And so we need, apparently we haven't learned that lesson, so our goal with this project is to continue to teach tolerance, acceptance and to value differences. And I'm very proud of the fact that Howard and I have worked along with what might have, and of course the Holocaust Memorial Museum and others to bring about this program. And today's speaker, Howard, will introduce shortly someone that we're very fortunate to have this evening to hear his story and then we can learn from that story. So at this time I would like to invite to the podium my good friend, Howard Nestle. I'm glad to see so many people here, maybe have to put it in panoramic video. Ask a whole other smile. Here we go. All right, so let's put this away for a minute. My name is Howard Nestle and welcome to the fourth annual the Holocaust Learning Remember Program. There is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come. What started off as a casual breakfast conversation that Jameel mentioned five years ago has turned into a citywide event of speakers, videos, audio storytelling, posters, photography, art exhibits at San Antonio Branch Libraries, at Central Library right here at the Jewish Community Center and at our Holocaust Museum. Over the past four years, thousands of San Antonians have heard stories online, checked out related books, visited exhibits and listened to fascinating speakers share knowledge and firsthand experiences about the Holocaust. Including liberators, survivors, rescuers, Jewish and other targeted groups and this year's theme children of war. Participating in the upstairs over the past four years as well as their parents have been encouraged to not only learn and remember which is the name of our program but have been encouraged to also think and act. Martin Lee Miller put it best when he said, first they came for the Soviets. I'm sorry, first they came for the Socialists and I did not speak up because I was not a Socialist. Then they came for the Trade Unionists and I did not speak up because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews and I did not speak up because I was not a Jew. And then they came for me and no one was left to speak for me. That's what we got the idea for think and act. Earlier I said there is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come. Tonight you will hear from Dr. Bern Walschlager about perhaps the most powerful idea of his life. Dr. Walschlager is a board certified family physician in private practice in Florida. He received his medical education in Germany, Israel and the US. He is a fellow of the American Society of Addiction Medicine. He is also served as clinical assistant professor of family medicine at the University of Miami, School of Medicine, the Florida International and Florida State University College of Medicine. Dr. Walschlager sat on the board of the Florida Academy of Family Physicians and is the past president of the Dade County Medical Association and the Florida Society of Addiction Medicine. It's no surprise that in 2012 Dr. Walschlager was honored by the Academy as Family Doctor of the Year. He's also the author of several books, some of you who have read some of his books here recently, including A German Life Against All Laws Changes Possible. Ladies and gentlemen, please help me in welcoming Dr. Bern Walschlager. Thank you very much for the invitation. It's great to be here. I had a trip behind me that took me the last 72 hours to different places here in the United States, but I said San Antonio and I must squeeze it because it sounds like a great place to go to. And it is. So whenever I'm being asked to speak about my life, I feel a little bit reclaimed. Because I never intended to speak about my life ever on a very separate reason. I couldn't process what happened. I felt deeply ashamed and embarrassed about my own past and wanted to create my own future by forgetting my past. Until my son, who is now 27 years old, asked me once a simple question. He was in his mid-teens, 15, 16 years old. They asked me, dad, who is my grandfather? And at that point in time I knew that I admitted something very important to tell about his own family. He knew one part of the family, but the other part of the family, my part of the family, was a dark and black wall. But how should I explain it to him? I asked myself, because of the one hand, his own father, just truly as a Jew, an Israeli, served as an officer in this or in the defense forces. And on the other hand, his own grandfather, my father, was a highly decorated German World War II tank commander and convinced national socialists. So how do you reconcile these two worlds? And then I tried by telling it the story of my life, and approximately what I told my son, I'm going to tell you. Every life begins with the time and place he was born in and born at. I was born in Germany in 1958 in a beautiful town in Germany called Bamberg. You use the proper German pronunciation. Americans use it in Bamberg, but it's Bamberg. And it's a historic city. It's a thousand-year-old city. It's actually called the Role of the North. The only whole bird outside Rome is bird in Bamberg. Each hill is drawn by a church, modeled after Rome. And the center of the city is a massive cathedral. And I grew up in this time machine, in this historic city, fully aware about history. And we were taught history, everything that dated back to a thousand years. But something was missing, not that I understood intellectually, I was too young, but I understood that certain aspects of history are taboo. There's a word in German called Todschweigen, silence to death. We don't talk about it. And I knew that that was something we don't talk about. It's something about the recent past, which I knew that happened because I knew as a child the war happened. It was obvious Germany was divided 40 miles through the East, the Iron Curtain came down. Massive troop concentration of NATO troops. In our city alone, 15,000 American soldiers and family members, among 75,000 native Germans, a significant part of social fabric. So I knew a war happened, I knew that we probably didn't win that war because otherwise there wouldn't be foreign soldiers in the town. I figured that out. But I wanted to know a little bit more about that war because I knew that that war affected our family too because I myself didn't have any grandparents. Whenever I asked about my grandparents, I was told they're gone because of the war. So I knew something big happened. Slowly but surely my parents had to disclose something about their old past which affected my life. And so I heard two different stories. One for my father and one for my mother. And my father's story began telling me during long walks that he had on Sunday afternoons in the forest. He was an outdoor person, a hunter. He told me how to handle a rifle, how to shoot, how to fish. And we had a lot of time together. And he told me over and over and they told me over and over the story of him serving as the youngest tank commander in the German Army in the lead tank unit under the command of General Guderian. General Guderian was the father of the German blitzkrieg. My father was his assistant, serving on a heavy battle from the German army. From September 1st, 1939, the attack on Poland followed the next year the attack on France, Netherlands, Belgium and then of course the following year, some of 1941 the attack on the former Soviet Union. My father's tanks is a lead unit stormed forward in the 1st and the right of the road. And for his accomplishments to conquer strategically located town on the push towards Moscow called Urel, he was awarded the Night's Cross which was awarded him by a man whom he still adorably referred to in my presence as his hero, Adolf Hitler. And he showed me that Night's Cross and I was proud that my father was a hero. Obviously he was a big man, he was the knight in shining armor and this message that my father was a hero was reinforced by his old qualities, the old comrades who came to our house at least once a year to celebrate the good old times. That was the way they referred to the war and my father often was their hero. So, summary, my father was a hero. On the other hand, my mother told me a completely different story about that war. The war is horror and catastrophe. She was an ethnic German born and raised in Czechoslovakia in St. Dittenland in Kalspad and she was born into a wealthy merchant family. My grandfather owned the flourishing merchant, the glove manufacturing merchant business in the outskirts of Kalspad. They lived in a beautiful villa, the only thing left of that villa was a picture which was mounted in the wall of our apartment. And as a result of the war, all ethnic Germans were expelled and many of them died more than a million and among them were my grandparents and my mother. So the war was horror in my mother's eyes, the war was glory in my father's eyes. But there was something else about the war that my parents didn't tell me about and it actually had to do something that the house that we were living in. A massive two-story building in downtown Bamberg, it still exists. I was living in the first floor and rented an apartment from the landlady upstairs who lived in a massive, huge second floor apartment. And my mother referred to the landlady as the Countess and I should not talk to her unless spoken to. And right next to the wooden stairway leading upstairs to the Countess's apartment was on the mall mounted a portrait of the man depicting an officer in uniform, officer's jacket, officer's insignia on the shoulders, the knights crossed around his neck, officer's cap on his head. I'm going to ask my parents, ask my father who this man was, my father referred to him as the traitor in German Nefereta. I'm going to ask myself how can it be that a man who looked like my father at least in pictures is a bad person. That's what a traitor is. And my father was pictures in uniform. I saw at home as a good person. There's something, there's a dissonance. I don't understand it. Until I learned from the landlady upstairs there was a portrait of a late husband, Count Klaus von Stauffenberg, a German colonel who was leading the assassination attempt on the 20th of July 1944. And Nina von Stauffenberg was the owner of the house and she lived upstairs. And she had grandchildren and so I played with the grandchildren and by playing with the grandchildren I entered her apartment and I learned from her about this man who obviously was not a bad man like my father described, he was the only time-rent for the dictatorship. So something happened during this time that my father served in the military that he didn't wanted to tell me. And so slowly but surely at about 12, 13 years old we started to talk in school in history lessons about that time. And what we learned was approximately the following story. The National Socialist came to power in 1933 taking over a nascent German democracy establishing a brutal dictatorship. Concentration camps sprouted up like mushrooms though in Germany. Hundreds of thousands of people disappeared in those concentration camps. The Nazis triggered the Second World War 50, 60, 70 million people died and among them 6 million Jews as collateral damage of war. And then the 8th of May 1945 the Liberation Day half and half the Nazis disappeared and we began a new life. Let's count the notion that we learned nothing about the Holocaust until the event happened in Germany that changed everything. The summer of 1972 the Olympics in Germany I was 14 years old and to this event we were literally primed to recognize this event and we were prepared to recognize this event as a big event that should separate the journey of the past where 8 of 8 levels of the Olympics in Berlin 1936 the Olympics of 1972 in Munich which represented the democratic Germany a Germany part of the western alliance of the economic and military alliance and a Germany led at that time by a chancellor or prime minister called Willy Brandt who himself was a very abrupt break to any German post-war German leader that he had so far because he was not tainted by the past he was never a member of the National Socialist Party he was himself a victim of the Nazis he was a socialist or a social democrat who had to flee Germany in 1933 escaping certain imprisonment fleeing to Norway from Norway then to Sweden returned to Germany in 1945 to rebuild the Social Democratic Party he rose to power in 1969 and one of his first foreign troops that he took was to Poland communist Poland and in front of the Wachow Ghetto Memorial he said on his knees and asked for forgiveness what Germany did and that picture went around the world it was on the front page of our newspaper and I remember my father's reaction slanted this paper on the breakfast table yelling and screaming again a traitor because there was nothing to give for in my father's eyes and the same chancellor that is now tremendous moral standing in the western world opened the Olympics to a great fanfare beautiful August day the chancellor opened the Olympics and we watched it at home on TV the first TV that we had like a wine when our parents invited friends over there was fine food, wine, beer there was a joyous atmosphere and we watched all the teams parading through the stadium carrying their respective flags and suddenly one team entered the stadium that changed the entire story carrying a flag with a star inside in that moment my parents stopped talking there was the moment as a ghost appeared on the screen he did not ask the question moment and asked himself, that's funny that's another team could it be Switzerland, the United States, France I didn't know the difference why my parents react like that I was 14 years old and then 10 days later the catastrophe happened the same team that's proudly paraded to the stadium was brutally attacked by a group of Palestinian terrorists two Israelis were murdered and the German government deeply embarrassed that Jews were killed on German soil and kept hostage on German soil dispatched highest ranking government members to the Olympic village to negotiate face to face with the terrorists among them the minister of interior Gensher and he offered himself as a hostage in return for the Israelis the terrorist leader denied the exchange demands and demanded himself to be flown out to a military airport outside Munich and then the German military Boeing 707 should fly them in the hostages to an Arab country of their choice and Israel should release Arab hostages or Arab prisoners from Israeli prisons and exchange with the Israeli hostages the German government agreed the same night two helicopters took off on the Olympic village each of them were hostages and terrorists and they landed behind the closed gates of the military airport when they first left for a group all laid out, beat by beat on live TV I remember every moment and then all hell broke loose 5-5 nights guided by explosions 5-5 lasted for 2 hours and then deafening silence nobody knew what happened until the news broke they were all gone what happened the German police tried to liberate the hostages they were all gunned by the terrorists the terrorists immediately recognized that there is no way out they killed all the hostages and sent them they threw a hand grenade in one helicopter which burned out and all the everyone perished the other helicopter just sprayed the machine on fire and everybody died and the next day in the newspaper this picture with the two helicopters on the tarmac and a huge headline in German Jews killed in Germany again now I speak and understand German but I didn't understand the part what does that mean again implied that Jews have murdered before so I asked my father what does it mean and I expected from my father who I adored and admired who was very well read and intellectual and we discussed a lot of political affairs and history and current affairs and history together he blocked me off and he responded in our house we don't talk about them the Jews not again with them but once again the victims as the perpetrators and the perpetrators as the victims I was stunned by my father who didn't talk and in school in contrast to my father's silence in school we started to talk and we started to talk about an aspect of German history that I never heard of the murder of 6 million in the name of Germany not as collateral damage or war but as a deliberate planned action and decision by a democratically elected government Auschwitz Dürkenheim Eichmann the final solution I was stunned I was shocked I never heard about it and when I came home that evening I asked my father father in school we talked about the Holocaust what did you know about it my father responded burned your teachers are communists it's all a lie it never happened don't believe me on one hand I believed and trusted my father on the other hand I believed and respected my teachers who was right and who was wrong so I embarked on this journey I was driven by something I don't understand until today but I knew I wanted to know the truth and so I embarked on the journey by reading everything I could find in the library anything that he put in our libraries in the neighborhood in the city of Perluse books about the Third Reich I read them all at the beginning my father wouldn't talk because he had something to conceal so I decided to ask my father the problem was that he wouldn't talk but I knew my father had a soft spot here in the day I was a child of an alcoholic parent my father was a regime alcoholic and I knew there were three phases of the dirty day that needed to be planned the day accordingly phase one my father was looking for a drink he was restless spirit couldn't talk to him phase three he was in Lana Lake but in the twilight zone just in the twilight zone when I asked him for an hour or two you could talk to him and you could get things out of him you could manipulate him and this solar is struck and the answers came up in phases the phases were characterized according to phase one, two and three phase one heard whatever allegedly happened he answered me whatever allegedly happened I didn't do it it was all PSS so we were the knight of charming armor we just battled and went home that was a group, played in line I knew that already from the lady upstairs who taught me and told me stories about her husband ranking high ranking officer in the chief of staff office Staufenberg was severely wounded during the North African War and it was delegated to be the chief of staff and chief of staff office of the German Army responsible for troop supplies in the front and he could never figure out that there was not enough train capacity to supply the troops in the front eastern front until he found out why the trains were diverted to supply the audience of Auschwitz with material to burn Jews and he found out that it was shot when he turned there was one of the motivating factors every ranking officer knew that after my father's death I found out the truth and the archives were opened after the fall of the war the archives in the east specifically in the Germany archives Staufenberg's Secret Security Service I found that actually one researcher provided to me the denuncification protocols of my father's interrogations and when he was in America in the British prison and it clearly revealed that there were often human shield operations and war crimes killing of civilians then just last year I gave a series of lectures in my own hotel in Malibu and the military historian who had just dealt with the history of my father's unit approached me and provided me with a minute to mental out the Shakespeare case and said I want to give it to you I'm actually going to be charged to hand it over to you by the family members of your late father's technique and as I said I never know knowledge of my father's technique and why I wanted to give it to you because you're the son of a commander so I opened the suitcase in his presence and inside were written pieces of Torah scrolls and asking what does it mean he said well when your father's unit destroyed two marriages and murdered everybody they tore the synagogues and pulled out the Torah scrolls they soaked them in water and cut them into pieces so that they can be used as insulation material for the German tanks and the cold Russian winter perfect insulation material and the remnants of this murderous act were taken as a momentum back by my father's late tank mechanic and the family had it in a possession and gave it to me it's not in my hands that I would hand it over to the Holocaust Museum my father was a murderer and I had to sense it at that time already that he was these answers were characterized by the following burden when civilians were killed they were not real civilians they were partisans we call them terrorists nowadays so we could kill them Geneva Convention doesn't apply so asking for retoric questions of father you tried to convince me that as civilians for example 1.2 million children were murdered fighting the mindless army in the world and they were killed and murdered by the Russian camps camps, their bodies burned the ashes scattered on the killing fields of Auschwitz Birkenau by night babies ripped the life and children ripped the life of their mother's arms thrown into burning pits you would tell me that they fought the war against you you're a liar and you knew that you couldn't do anything about it then phase 3 it was one evening it was just point blank drunk it was drunk all of us it's something that we did for the world the world should be grateful that we cleaned up the Messonese the world should be grateful that we cleaned up these so called Jews because they were not productive so be grateful that was a good deed and I couldn't believe that I turned away from my father this was the last sentence that he would say it was like that he strawed the cannons and broke the cannons back he was not my father anymore he was just a simple murder and criminal and as I said why the Jews I was a catholic race and a catholic faith I never met Jews and never heard about Jews except in some day school when our priest told us the Jews killed Jesus but that was all that I knew about Jews and I wanted to find out why the Jews, why would the Germans turn against Jews so I asked one of my teachers who told me, look Bert I struggled with that issue myself and the only way I came to a conclusion that the only way to overcome the shame and guilt is to make amends so make amends to those who are not and ask them out to whom should I make amends so I don't know Jews where to find Jews said well, the catholic church advised once a year in some group of Israelis Arabs and Jews alike to Germany and to find peace among each other the young Germans can't participate and you can be one of the members and so I joined one of the groups and when young people get together I was 18 at the time they try to find what makes them alike what food you like, what music you like what books you like, I like these really girls they come from all so I was not driven only by spiritual needs I was afraid feelings here that's a pinchy rated event so we can't go further and one of the girls I contacted with and she said look Bert if you don't want to see me again you have to come to Israel I said absolutely I would do that it was a big stretch I didn't need the money or passport to do that so I scratched the money to get it from some of the jobs I got from a passport and then each time to Israel I didn't have money for a plane via Italy from there called a ferry from a corner shipped through the Mediterranean let them know I was stopping after the harbor overjoyed seeing me and I was overjoyed seeing her but I also felt so in deep in me I was in this feeling if somebody would recognize me with my last name maybe somebody would recognize me when I was associated with my father I didn't know what to expect and so she took me to a parent's apartment that was in the working class neighborhood at that time called Neba Shannan her parents invited us in immediately and they were already there to stay instead of a room for me both together in one room they set up a table to find food everything they could afford their father the mother spoke Yiddish with a chit chatting with me and I had a hard time following them because Yiddish is not German their father noticed that he looked at me and then said suddenly clear but holding German if you want to speak German I can speak German too when I was in Germany I didn't say a word I just rolled up the speaker on the score pointed to the number two and said I was in the camps and here I was a young German for the first time in Israel for the first time in the Jewish home and in the home of all of us together what is expected from me how should I react I didn't know they looked at me and said I don't blame you don't be afraid I don't know about that about suffering and honestly I don't know so then you should learn because I don't hate Germans I just want Germans to understand and it took me a few days later to Yad Vashem the Holocaust Memorial Bush alive in Jerusalem and then through the eyes of the survivor I was guided to the exhibit and it was a very much fun experience I could not understand that my people the Germans would do something like that friendly people that hosted me at home and I asked myself how can these people that suffer so much this family specifically rebuild the personal life the professional life rebuild an old nation anew where do they take the strength from what makes Jews tick I decided I want to find out more about Jews I'm already a German upon the question how can I do that so I decided to approach a Jewish community in Germany which was very difficult because there are hardly any Jews left in Germany among 70 million Germans there were about 25,000 Jews at that time and you couldn't approach any Jewish community centers at all because the terror wave by German terrorists red-army faction kind of steaming terrorism was rampant during the 70s in Germany but I found a small Jewish community in my hometown home price of 30 Holocaust survivors and the chair of the Jewish community his name was Itzhak Rosenberg I literally looked at this glass door of this community and he let me in and he thought that I'm a German student who has to write a report and he sat me down and probably wasn't the first one he said, so what book do you like? I said, I don't want a book, I want to speak to you he said, why don't you want to speak to me and I couldn't take my face off his arm and when he was talking to me he was very skinny had pale skin a wide short-sleeved shirt and he had this dark number that took him to the forum and I looked at him and the chair just to get it out of over this is Auschwitz, I was in Auschwitz so what do you want me to do with you? I said, can I help you? can I help you and understand and learn? he said, okay I will if you want me to teach you about Judaism and I'm not a Rabbi you have to make a shift in business you will be our Shabboskoy in terms of teaching now I didn't know what a Shabboskoy was and I said, what does it mean? I said, well, we have a bunch of other cuckers in the community that sits first of men and I need help so you will set up a table I'll show you what to do like the candles turn on the oven prepare the food during Shabbat because it's one of B.S. Orthodox Jews can do and the rest will be okay and that's what I did I came every Friday, every Saturday I became a fixture in this community they only called me the Goy Shabboskoy and I was there was a Shkipet a prayer room that was maybe one eighth of the size of this room and when ten men were in there and maybe a few more I stood up like a sore thumb like a stranger but they accepted me slowly with children and the closer I came to this community of choice I spoke the liturgy, the language, the culture the more I distanced myself to my family of origin and it came to a breakup there were many parts of the breakup but one day it was specifically bad when Christmas fell Friday night and I knew we had to be on a Friday night and for my mother in Orthodox Catholic Christmas was a big deal I can play this Christmas ceremony in my head like a movie going to Mass with her having festive Christmas dinner with symbolic food lentil soup and car and then my father decorated Christmas tree and my father was putting candles on the Christmas tree lighting the candles calling us into the room he was standing next to the Christmas tree he started buying the suit and the lights crossed around his neck singing festive Christmas songs and I was not there on the next day when I came back home all hell broke loose and my father yelled at me I said look, stop this great tragedy I'm not willing to sit with you at the same table anymore with your blood stained hands and this metal, this disgusting metal that you carry around your neck I don't want to sit at the table with a murder celebrating the birth of Christ and it looked at me, can't go back no problem, announce get out and it was a problem in Kessef and Gilt and that was the second to last year I don't have a scholarship but I needed some pocket money and I didn't have it but I got an answer for the future and it's like I must have noticed that I have told others because I never took any money from members of the community because suddenly one of the members of the community would never talk to me his name was Arman approaching me and he looked at me and it was a small command he looked at me and said do this to Goy Arman told me that in your jacket and shoes and your jacket and shoes are dirty he gave me a hundred marks and pointed the noise off and buy new stuff and I remember not dirty I was insulted but he gave me money and I didn't understand why and it's a good German I went to Itzar because it's an album he gave me a hundred marks it's wrong with him and it's a good command so he at least asked me for 200 and I said what's going on he said come on it's a joke sit down you have to understand Arman doesn't talk even to us about what happened to him we are all local survivors we suspect he went to the works he doesn't talk to us in the only way of expression of emotional expressions between mine he has no family no children he only has money that's what he shares and I became a friend Arman and I became close friends and he told me a story and the story was that of a horrific that I still need him today of a hard time telling he was part of a son of a mother he was in a special unit that emptied the opens emptied the gas chambers when the Jews were gassed and putting the bulk bodies in the oven and took care of the remnants and he was damaged good for it he didn't want to talk about it exactly when he died I was asked to say I can't do that I'm not a Jew he said so I became part of the condition of the very society he prepared his body for burial he had no rabbi and we buried him and I said I'm cross the line I cannot go back and I told him I'm noble and he said good bye it's a bad idea you already forgot this is your suffering you only get suffering there's nothing good coming up to become a Jew don't become a Jew I said well I sent you to a rabbi in Frankfurt all expenses pay trip even talking out of it and come back and tell me you're done well I did that I'm not a Jew but if I want to be a student I can become a student so I became a student of the course of two years hommish I learned everything as if I wanted to become a scholar or a convert and I asked him about conversion because I broke this rule and he said no until two years later in the spring of 1986 I sent you to a rabbi in Frankfurt in Frankfurt however they would decide they would decide but until you get there you have to make a commitment which is irreversible you have to undergo a little plastic surgery it's not a fake surgery it's not the nose involved and you have to be done in a kosher facility in Switzerland orthodox facility conversion and in November 1986 I presented myself to the rabbinic court in Germany and for those of you who still understand a very dated joke this was the Elizabeth Taylor semi-davis junior Las Vegas started drive through conversion this was the real deal this was a hardcore investigation about who I am my character and my motivation my person and I passed and I remember the rabbis when they returned from the session and you asked me to stand up read the conversion certificate they did about Hebrew and Hebrew and they determined and asked me what do you want to do and told them they don't belong and it wasn't my name, my Hebrew name what do you want to do and I replied very simple in one sentence in the Israeli embassy within 30 days it was written I was supported in the law return and following that I took a one way ticket from Frankfurt to Tel Aviv and it was gone and my certificate of conversion and a certificate of graduation from medical school and that's it and I arrived in Israel I was assigned to Kibuz worked during the day learned Hebrew in the evening in school half a year later, six months later took my German license up to the Israeli part year afterwards because I immediately accepted this real citizenship I was an editor before the draft I was drafted to the military and I went basic training officer scores because it was a professional and then assigned to a combat unit in the territory nearby Alhalla and there it hit me year was standing next to my commanding officer I was the second in command of the physician of the unit Ofer Kudzi I was a lieutenant and I asked myself if they the soldiers find out that I'm a Nazi father my father was a Nazi and I'm a son, that I'm practically a Jew in drag they find out that I'm a father's son they will kick me out of this club I cannot talk about it ever never I passed in his virtual closet slammed the door shut turned the key of the lock and thrown the key away that was a bad idea because years and years later my own son told asked me the simple question in Hebrew I don't know, yes I'm a shipping father who is my grandfather I don't reply, I don't want to tell the story his reaction all my children are born and raised Jewish his reaction was, that's a cool story dad so dad I got it over with check mark done it was a little problem the fact that my children all at least at that time were going to Jewish schools and the family history day few weeks after I told them I was told that my son raised his hand and proudly declared that my grandfather was a famous Nazi post is a little challenge in the Jewish school and I was told to the principal's office and the principal was seriously upset and he asked me Dr. Volscher-Degard your respected member of our community and your son told us a very unbelievable story what is wrong with him because there is nothing wrong with him I told him my life story he was stunned and he said you want to share that and I quickly shared it because I needed to get my son out of the hot seat and the brevi who was in the room with us he asked me Dr. Volscher-Degard to share the story he said never, you should and he made me share the story in front of my son's class and then suddenly something happened with him probably predicted what happened and the weight was lifted on my shoulder and I asked myself what truly happened I allowed myself to ask the question what happened in this world in my life where I never closed the circle of life I closed the circle of life and I did that by taking my son back to Germany traveled back to Germany 20 years after I left visiting my parents in the only place I could know I would visit them the cemetery and I found a grave site ironically telling me even today when I visited once a year it's eerie and you can visit it Volscher-Degard's grave in Bamberg you can see that what I mean one day grave is located parallel to the wall that separates the Jewish cemetery from the Christian cemetery so it is divided by the wall and when you look for my parents graves towards that wall you see in the other side Jewish gravestones and I told my son this is your grandparents grave site my parents grave site and the irony of history is that they are resting in the shadow of history they never stepped out of the shadow so they are a little bit connected I had no other choice to step out of the shadow by looking back learning the lessons of the past and applying those lessons to the future so it would never happen again because I as a German cannot undo what happened it's impossible but I can take the burden of history the responsibility so that I never make those mistakes that none of us in our generation makes those mistakes again that's the only thing that I can do I'm appreciative of what my father taught me my father taught me the sensualism and the lesson is that hatred is not a value Hatred is something that is not a magic force of the universe it is dark energy black energy in the universe no hatred is something that can be generated every single day with words of prejudice, stereotypes words that are negative discriminating words and if these words that are unchallenged they follow the further ground and the further ground is the mind of others and if this mind of others is brought into deeds and if these deeds left unchallenged habits will forward if these habits prevail, characters will forward if these characters nominate they will shake social norms the development of social norms and that explains but never excuses that an entire people like the Germans brilliant, highly sophisticated and dedicated turned away from the war ahead because it was normal everybody knew everybody knew but they were living in predictive denial now that is not something new and I don't take the terms of the book of mystery that is not something new unfortunately after Auschwitz genocide had to fall over and over again because the dynamic of hatred was still alive and picking throughout the world and all societies Cambodia in 1972 the murder of more than one million in the name of the stone age communism Rwanda 20 years ago when two tribes murdered and slaughtered each other one tribe murdered and slaughtered the other tribe 800,000 to a million people cultured in the span of 6 months and that of course extermination we forgot and Serbs murdered Muslim men and Muslim men and boys to mass graves and shock them in the next thousands and we can go on Syria combo it's going on and on and on and the question is why because we've got it still words prevailing we don't speak up and that affects us too this is not a remote 4-4 far away countries I want to remind you without embarrassing here I'm an American myself too that these things happened in the state in the United States too we forgot the lynching of thousands of African Americans over the decades of the 19th early 20th century we wanted to mock around and mock cheering the lynching and no memories and memorials of them we forgot the burning of Japanese-American inter-concentration camps depriving them of the civil rights or the brave African American soldiers a return from battle of the Second World War coming home to live again second class citizens even though they were heroes in the Civil Rights Act of 1962 it's all a part of our history and then again today 2016 we'd be a cheer on candidate of presidential elections who made an ancient goal and value and who says something about it those who stay silent are guilty and those who are pregnant don't want to speak up a guilty as charged would happen later on it's a lesson of the Holocaust it's a lesson of every genocide it's a lesson of tolerance we need to learn that if we don't learn this lesson we have to be reminded and that's my task and this is my effort at an extent and I appreciate it that you listen to me and I'm fully aware that I hope that against all odds changes possible everywhere at any time thank you very much I'm happy to take a few we have ten minutes to take I hope on my right to my left it's not political so I start with ladies my right you might as well have a personal question were you still in contact with your parents when they passed away? no I was the outcast of the family I was taken out of the will and my father specifically stipulated that I should not visit his grave so I went to me and I met him later on his funeral noise grave and it was all cast it was the trade there was a Christian at my left side I think I'm not going to go back to my right side what about the remainder of the family on your father's side where you outcast from them as well my father only had an uncle rather than a sister I actually met him later on my father always concealed that he had them I didn't have much of a close relationship with him at all I knew them and I have two sisters I had two sisters one sister died ten years ago my youngest sister stood as a jury in the same town and we developed a good relationship and I'm trying to explain it to her we redeveloped a brother and sister relationship which I can say is fairly normal you know, nobody survived yes sir well you got up to the point in your story where you became Israeli how did you happen to become American well as a good Israeli you're always in search of the promised land I came to this country because my wife was an Israeli-American and she wanted to go back home and the whole was Miami and then I came to Miami with her and became then because she's an American citizen became also an American citizen that's a question to the guy I've been reading about this type of thing on and off ever since we had holocaust studies in Hebrew school when I was a kid and my father worked with a holocaust about a guy who escaped out of concentration camp finally made it to the United States made it big in the chemical industry he wrote an article along with the secretary about this guy and I offered it to a couple of holocaust you know like museums and stuff like the one in town another one back in my hometown nobody wants it and I for the life of me can't figure out why they wouldn't want another story like that not trying to accuse anybody of anything but do you have any idea why why they wouldn't want an article about here's a guy who's you know, state who is state who is state the holocaust museum here at the Jewish community center and another Jewish community center in Marblehead, Massachusetts I mean I say, I'll send you to PDF I'm not charging them I'm not even an answer maybe my superiority is on and sadly there are many stories of political survivors and the plethora of stories can suddenly appear overwhelming I would advise and introduce submitted to the different resources that organizations can provide resources in the U.S. holocaust museum they should actually just this moment open a facility outside Washington for invited researchers and interested parties where this the vast majority of material is stored in the kind of display in Washington and a lot of the holocaust museums throughout the country are key to the system and somebody will probably be interested there's a question in the back I'm not simple to your story but I wonder when you left did you continue to talk to your mother because she in a way was a bit of a victim I had briefed contact with my mother fortunately it was interfered and the contact was seen on the mention outside of these that she eventually succumbed to so I don't know how much of this communication stuck to her I met her one more time and she locked me out of the house she thought I'm a stranger she was unfortunately afflicted by Alzheimer's disease so it was not physical it was more direct to my contact and certainly there was a question here yes sir you were talking about growing up in Germany that you were not taught about holocaust in school do you know what the curriculum has changed in Germany in public schools and if they are now teaching about the holocaust dramatically Germany went through phases of dealing with the path which is phases of grief and denial from 1945 to 1955 in Germany everybody wanted to go forward to rebuild the holocaust period more then in 1955 Germany began sovereignty in the first president of Germany in chair of the hoist made it a point to recognize the members the surviving members and the family members of the men and women of Germany in july 1944 and mated heroes then people started leading the leadership that continued to bring out the path in the first holocaust trials which took place in the Auschwitz trials in 1962 and followed by that the stupid rebellion in the 1960s that depended on the parents to let us know what happened and followed that with the with Willy Brown's reign to empower this world and he made it a point to teach every student in school on this mid-sex late 60s early 70s systematically to introduce the holocaust curriculum that was done so nowadays holocaust and genocide prevention teaching is part and parcel of everything in school education for the student at any level in Germany so you cannot escape in Germany any reminder of holocaust when you go in the city in the remote town these are stepping stones where they are placed in front of buildings the houses of people that suffered from the holocaust reminders of what happened the holocaust museum in Berlin the flourishing Jewish community in Germany which is thriving the Jewish schools, the university the provincial schools Germany deals with the holocaust head on because this is part of the history that we need to embrace and moving forward to the future of the holocaust was a question I was wondering if you have ever spoken to other children of oppressive regimes maybe not related to the holocaust well I took a was invited to present my story in South Africa and two years ago I went to South Africa together with my son that spoke in Jewish and non-Jewish communities in Johannesburg in town in Durban, in Pretoria and I met children of perpetrators white South Africans whose fathers were involved in the torture of African South Africans white South Africans they had a built feeling to understand their role in this new society which was a society built on holocaust and I found the only comment is dynamic of shame and dynamic of guilt that is similar to the dynamic I found and of course the children of survivors are similar to that I think the children of survivors of the holocaust are all closer to them because they deal with the same dynamic that the parents talk often and we bonded through that joint experience yes ma'am have you been able to forgive your father have I been able to forgive my father I forgave my father for what he did to me but I cannot forgive him what he did to others that's impossible it's not up to me and I have in order to have a healthy identity and move forward in my life and to be a healthy father myself I have to forgive him yes ma'am what is my position and the impression of this growth of anti-tolerant movement including neo-nazis unfortunately this is a universal phenomenon it is by the way the origins of the neo-nazis movement in propaganda is here in the united states of america we have the most proliferate hotbed of propaganda that is built on the internet coming from the united states florida and mid-west specifically now that there are neo-nazis in germany and neo-nazis in russia neo-nazis in poland and neo-nazis in greece and neo-nazis in france and neo-nazis in britain yes the question is what do we do with that in germany they do it in a very admirable way multidrive them on the ground let them express their opinions in a limited version we keep them under control that's the best thing you can do because if you drive them on the ground by braiding and speaking up you're creating an underground movement and that is in germany position i'm concerned about growing ways of intolerance throughout the world specifically in our country home-grown intolerance granted which in my opinion can easily spill over some forms of extremism which are going to be physical and that we can call it whatever it is, call it the radical populism where we have to be careful very careful and we have to prepare ourselves for the worst and the best thing to prevent it is to speak up and speak out and say this is not our character they speak their lives but this is not ours a lot of immigrants coming into the Europe with this reaction do you think there is danger of right-wing organizations of governments prevailing across the world? it is always the challenge for any society to deal with a stranger who doesn't speak like us who looks like us who behaves like us we're already in the torque germany took a heroic position and they will pay off for that in the long term to take in one million Syrian refugees who are running away from terrorism from murder from rape and providing them a home in Germany they will be the reason why one million Syrians run away because we the United States have trashed it at least and created a huge refugee crisis who don't take the responsibility to be ashamed whereas germany takes the position that we integrate them in the long term and this society will be far more productive than the society we were with before that was a political decision now will people be afraid and be xenophobic? absolutely but it's a question of how you're a responder I'm more concerned about the response in this country because the Syrians are taking it painful whereas we trash the Middle East and are responsible for this problem we should be ashamed that we don't have the political courage the civic courage to take it much more maybe if they are not in danger this is hogwash to listen to the the person they charge they are all terrorists they are running away from terrorists Syrians are the most secular people secular students even though they are supposed to be our enemies but every Syrian that I've had they are watching secular secular students should you take another question? I think it's someone who's left in Israel and now America and thinking about I'm getting the sense that the new form of anti-Zionism that's rising up is the form of anti-Zionism and so I'm wondering if you can comment on that you're talking about specifically BDS more quickly BDS is just that people who are ashamed to say they're anti-Semitic aren't afraid they're masking their anti-Semitism by being anti-Zionism well this is a good question I'll let you answer it the following way we criticize each other all the time we are criticizing ourselves all the time that's okay that's healthy but if criticism is monophishing that only Jews and Israel are the worst thing in the world and anything else is totally ignored that is called anti-Semitism period over now I had discussions with BDS where I asked when I told them by the way you must be very busy these days but yeah, the visuals there are so many issues on the table mass murder, Sudan rape and the incombo mass murder, incombo mass murder of the Sunnis by Shia we must be extremely busy to help those people silence it's only Israel it's only the Jews that is called anti-Semitism period over now and I don't think if they would deal with the violations around the world I would be fine with it so what can be done is put in blaming them for being anti-Semites even if you choose to be anti-Semites actually one of the leading members of Israel lives in Israel has a resident visa in Israel that is in Arab not born in Israel because he married in Israeli Arab he lives in Jaffa we met him by Israel on a resident visa at the same time he should know learning from the tolerance of the fact that Israel is the only country in the world that believe me can criticize many issues the only country in the world where for the last 60 years Jews and Arabs tried to live together 20% of the Israeli population are Muslims I work together with Arab doctors Arab nurses, Arab scientists in an Israeli hospital and we have no problems you can go in an Israeli in an Israeli Arab and we think there is a difference between how an Israeli Arab treats a person among an Israeli Jew this is the only country in the world where this is being practiced show me an Arab country where it's being held nowhere it's the Supreme Court just as the Jews in Israel we have members of the Knesset the government is the third largest faction in Knesset by the Arab factions show me in any other country in the world where it's possible when people point a finger at Israel they call it a very simple Knesset period, over and over thank you very much some of these books and he is donating the proceeds to the whole Knesset correct? yes thank you good night