A Chosen Few

by Mark Kurlansky

  Stasi scandals ruined many of the most productive people from the East, including not only political leaders but important writers and scientists. Most of these people were not agents but simply people who wanted to do things and had been compromised by a conversation—or a series of conversations. Where was the line to be drawn in a society where, as Martin Mandl in Brno said, you had to make decisions every day about what degree of collaboration was acceptable? When Polish General Jaruzelski offered to release Adam Michnik from prison if he would be willing to accept exile and forgo a trial, Michnik angrily responded, “To believe that I could accept such a proposal is to imagine that everyone is a police collaborator.” That was exactly what the system wanted to imagine.

  After unification the West Germans, who had never purged the Nazis from their ranks, who had lived for forty-five years with Nazis in government, Nazi judges, teachers, and policemen, now wanted to disenfranchise, fire, and disgrace all half-million East Germans on file at the Stasi, if they could find them. Not all of them made it as easy as Irene.

  Moritz Mebel, after years as an outsider because of his Soviet Army record, managed to become head of the urology department at the Charite Hospital. He built a reputation for the department, starting its kidney transplant program, and always felt that the West Germans showed great interest in his work. But once Germany was unified, the same West German professionals suddenly looked down at the work at Charite, somehow implying it was second rate. “I think that all things that were good in the GDR must be put down,” he said. In 1988 he had retired from both the hospital and the university. Under the GDR he got a pension of 5,600 marks monthly, but once the GDR was dissolved, his pension, like many of those that had been paid by the GDR, was reduced by the German government to 2,010 marks.

  “When the Wall came down,” said his wife Sonja, the microbiologist, “it was already clear that the GDR was over.”

  “But that it would come in the way it came, that we would be a colony,” said Moritz, pointing toward Sonja. “She saw it better than I did. I thought they were more intelligent than that, the Western politicians.” The Mebels’ daughter, Anna, lost her job as a paralegal working for a city service. Most of the East German civil service was fired. But Anna's husband knew how to adapt to the new Germany. In 1990, when he lost his job as a lawyer in the Ministry of Trade, he started retraining as a tax lawyer.

  THE FIRST THING Mia Lehmann did to prepare for unification was to reinforce the thin wooden door that had served her Prenz-lauer Berg apartment since 1946, with new thick steel plating. She thought the steel very ugly and covered it with her grandchildren's drawings, but you could not live in this West German society without a strong door. She was not the only one who thought that. At the time of unification East Berlin experienced a run on locks.

  In the last years of the GDR, Mia Lehmann had seen dissident meetings in her neighborhood broken up by the police. “I found it horrible. They had a different meeting, and they were persecuted just for that.”

  But asked if she was surprised, she laughed, “No. It has happened before.” The years of the exciting new democratic socialist Germany had been weighted with disappointments. But to Mia, the new united Germany was even more horrible.

  “Horrible. There are about two million people out of work. The factories are gone. The teachers are changed because they were GDR people and had to teach people what the party said. The doctors are changed. Everything is gone. Everything that was good in our system—And they are so awful. They think they know everything—everything was good in the Bundesrepublik, and here everything was bad.”

  Mia's figure of two million thrown out of work in the East was the often-quoted conservative estimate. Among those thrown out of work was her daughter, who had worked at a state-owned communications center that was eliminated after unification. Nor was Mia's criticism of the West unusually harsh. A good-natured new television comedy about Wessis and Ossis was popular, but in real life to most Berliners, the differences were more heartfelt than amusing. Ossis sometimes called the West Berliners Besserwessis, a play on the word Besserwisser—someone who thinks they know better.

  Even time was different in the East and West. In the East there was always time to sit and discuss, to schmooze in both senses of the word, according to popular mythology. Easterners were even reputed to have better sex. The Westerners, from the Eastern point of view, were always in a hurry, always cold and insincere. They did not have true friendships. All they seemed to value was money.

  To the Wessis, the Ossis seemed lazy, unproductive, backward, and parasitic. They had promised the East Germans everything to make them happy about unification, and then they became irritated because the Easterners expected them to deliver on their promises, as though Ossis should have been grateful that they got promises.

  As time went on, East Berliners grew increasingly nostalgic about things that reminded them of the GDR. Not agents and informants or guard dogs. But they liked their neighborhood stores with their limited choice of second-rate food. They, in fact, were willing to continue their bananaless lifestyle. The once official party organ, Neues Deutschland, still maintained about 95,000 circulation. Club Cola, the East German Coca-Cola substitute, also maintained a following. Sales were greatly boosted with an advertising campaign that used a 1970s slogan “Hooray, Fm still alive,” with clips of excited crowds from the early Erich Honecker days.

  There was the right-turn-on-red debate. After unification the green arrows next to East Berlin stoplights, which indicated that a right-turn-on-red was permitted, were taken down because there was no such traffic rule in the West. East Germans began painting green arrows next to stoplights. So many East Germans demanded their right-turn-on-red back that a government commission was set up to study it. In East Berlin, where the rhetoric of Communism was still in the vocabulary, this produced the headline, “Green Arrows Rehabilitated.” Local elections in 1994 showed that the Communist party was also being rehabilitated in East German cities.

  Berlin remained a divided city, with most Berliners keeping to their own side. Only the tourist map changed, because what had never been mentioned when the Wall was there was that most of historic Berlin was in East Berlin. West Berlin made no sense as a European city. It was a city only in the way that new American cities are—a series of ingrown suburbs that pass for a city because of a critical mass of population and economic and cultural activity. A map of Berlin from before the late nineteenth century does not even include present-day West Berlin. Once the city was divided, people in the West did not like to mention to tourists that the historic European capital called Berlin was actually in the East. That was where the Spree River was, on which the city was built. The old city center was there, along with the working class districts that had grown up around industrialization. The old Jewish neighborhood, the streets of theaters, cabarets, and museums, the historic government buildings were all in the East.

  Now you could walk through the once walled off Brandenburg Gate. Only buses and taxis were permitted to drive through because it was feared that the eighty-five-foot-high pillars that were supposed to recall the entrance to the Acropolis would not withstand the traffic. On top was a bronze Victory statue with four horses charging east. Victory had originally been charging West. Napoleon stole the statue, and when the Germans got it back after his demise, they remounted Victory charging East, which, curiously, was the direction of the Napoleonic victory. Through the old unified Germany, the Third Reich, the Soviets, East Germany, and now the new unified Germany, Victory has remained charging East.

  The East—the people, the streets, the buildings—was not manicured in that tidy way that Westerners think of as German. Buildings were dilapidated, and exposed steel rods made pedestrians think twice about walking under balconies. Almost fifty years after the street-fighting ended, bullet holes were still splattered across buildings in dense and irregular patterns, cornices were still in their rearranged shapes from incoming shells, and the scar
s of flying shrapnel still showed.

  HEADING NORTH from the gate through a dark, shot-up neighborhood, there was something shiny on the horizon resembling a gilded and egg, too shiny and new to fit in. It was the newly reconstructed dome of the Oranienburgerstrasse synagogue, which had been damaged by the Nazis to kick off their extermination of Judaism on Kristallnacht in 1938 and later had been damaged far worse by Allied bombs. Now it was being restored for use as a museum. The few East Berlin Jews did not need another large synagogue. They had the one not far away on Rykestrasse, and they generally used a small side room because the handsome main synagogue was too large for the dozen or so worshipers.

  Just as West Germany had taken over and dissolved the East German nation, the West German Jewish Community had taken over and dissolved the East German Jewish Community. In both cases the Wessis had dissolved the Eastern institutions, simply eliminated jobs and positions and superimposed their own institutions, which they assumed to be superior in all ways. In 1991, according to the West Berlin Jewish Community, the two Berlin Jewish Communities were “combined.” Irene Runge called it a “hostile takeover/” In reality, the Eastern one was eliminated. A West German Jewish welfare organization that was principally concerned with the problems of Jewish immigrants moved into what had been the offices of the East Berlin Community on the Oranienburgerstrasse. It became a center for Russians. There was no longer any place for East Berlin Jews. Peter Kirchner, who had miraculously survived the Holocaust in Berlin and had served as both mohel and Community leader since 1971, was simply dismissed from service.

  The West Berlin Community recognized that some East Ber-liners should be involved in their governing body. Some West Ber-liners, however, said they did not want Kirchner because they preferred someone with a less forceful personality, someone who, in effect, would sit quietly in meetings. But they also were genuinely troubled by Kirchner's relationship with the Stasi, even though his files showed that at times, such as during the Yom Kippur War, he had showed a fair amount of independence from official GDR policy. Rather than simply snubbing him, the West Berlin Community finessed Kirchner out of his position by exploiting the economic hardships that unification was causing for East Berliners. At a time when East Germans, especially East Germans with Stasi links, had little hope of employment, the West Berlin Jewish Community offered Kirchner's wife a good job. But once she signed the contract, it was pointed out that the families of employees were barred from participating in Community politics. Kirchner had been eliminated. That was how the Wessis operated.

  In 1993 a man who had had a history of heart attacks died on the floor of the Kulturverein. He was divorced, and had lived alone near the Rykestrasse synagogue, and while not a religious man, he always made himself available when a minyan was needed. But when Irene called the Jewish Community to make arrangements for a Jewish burial, she was told that they did not know that the man was Jewish. There was only one Jewish Community now, and this man had not been a member.

  The West Germans showed so little interest in the Jews of East Berlin that some Easterners began to suspect their primary interest was in the property. This suspicion was fueled by the fact that so many of the West German Jewish leaders were involved in real estate. Most of the historic Jewish property, including the Oranienburgerstrasse synagogue, was in the East. That was where the Jewish history was. And it was an area with a tremendous potential for development.

  The “united” Berlin Community invited more Russians than East Germans into its ruling institutions. Mark Aizikovitch was invited to join a cultural committee. Recognizing the emerging importance of the Kulturverein, some Westerners, including Moishe Waks, thought that Irene Runge should be offered a similar position. “We have a problem with her past,” said Moishe. “But I don't want to judge these people, because I don't know what I would have done in a totalitarian state.” Most of the Community leadership was opposed to giving any position to Irene. But Waks, who was often a dissident in their ranks, argued for her until it was agreed that they would examine her Stasi files, and as long as they found no strong evidence that she had harmed Jews, they would give her a position. It was still not a simple matter to gain access to Stasi files, but they were able to see what the Stasi had on Irene Runge and it turned out to be quite a lot. When the Community became convinced that she had been informing on Jews in the late 1970s, even Moishe Waks backed down.

  Since there was no longer a Community for East Berlin, Irene's Kulturverein became the place to contact the Eastern community, because in reality, even if not on paper, it remained a separate community. There were only an estimated two hundred Jewish East Berliners and another two hundred Jews in all of the former East Germany. Few East Berliners signed up as members of the West Berlin Community. West Berliners were rarely seen at the Kulturverein.

  The Kulturverein became a refuge for lost and searching East Berlin Jews. It didn't really matter what they were searching for. Irene did not model the Kulturverein on the old East German Community. It resembled more her memories of her father's bookshop in Times Square. It was a place to come and relax and meet other Jews and talk. It clearly operated on East and not West German time. Irene's description of it reveals the stereotypical East Berlin view of the difference between Ossis and Wessis. “Everybody is on first name. Nobody is into money. It's much simpler. People come here to talk to each other. There's coffee. In the West you have all these millionaires, and you know, it's a different atmosphere. Here people aren't drinking, they're drinking coffee and tea and standing, arguing, and people don't dress up.”

  Irene, like many East Berliners, did not like rich people and did not like people who dressed expensively. She liked her neighborhood in Prenzlauer Berg where she lived with her husband, a non-Jewish opera director. She had little need for West Berlin other than the popcorn and the sushi.

  The Kulturverein had a kitchen, and there was always food. A jar in the main room asked for contributions, but most people didn't pay. They just drank the coffee and ate the cakes. It was like the old GDR. No one had to pay, yet everything ran somehow. There were still a large number of non-Jews that came. But there were also confused people from the GDR who had lost their country and had suddenly started thinking about being Jewish. They would drift in to see what this place was about. Some would become regulars. Others would drift out again.

  A lean, tall man in a French beret wandered in one day, cautiously saying his name was Fred. He had the look of an old-time American Communist, which was what he was. He said he was from Texas, but his English had so many accents layered on it that it sounded unidentifiable. On the other hand, when he spoke German, he sounded like he was from Texas. His father had been a Silesian Jew and had been arrested by the Germans during World War I for agitating against the war. Fred was born in El Paso, Texas, in 1926, where his father, an active Communist, had raised him not to ask questions and to follow the lead of the Young Communist League. Fred had served in Europe in the Army Corps of Engineers during World War II. In 1950 he was called up again to serve in Korea. Since Austria was under partial Soviet control, he considered fleeing there. But a friend advised him that the Communists were going to lose Austria and he would be better off in East Germany, “It was good advice,” said Fred in his sad-eyed way. “I would have only gotten five years. In Germany I got forty.”

  He did not really know what to do in the new Germany. It seemed as if he had wandered into the Kulturverein looking for ideas, and he spent most of an afternoon sipping coffee and talking to whoever was around. “I never thought it would end up like this,” he said. “I thought Communism was the model for the future and everyone would move toward it.” Before he left he said that he had been thinking a lot about El Paso of late. “If I applied for U.S. citizenship, Pm pretty sure I could get it. But I would have to bow my head and say it was the biggest mistake of my life. It was all wrong. And doing that would offend my sense of dignity.

  “Well,” he said, adjusting the jaunty angle o
f his beret, “nice talking to y'all.” And he sadly sauntered to the door, down the dark and tattered stairway, and disappeared into the streets of the former East Berlin.

  THE DISTANCE between Ossis and Wessis was even greater in the case of Jews than non-Jews. While Mia Lehmann and Werner Handler had returned to East Germany out of a sense of idealism, trie West Berlin Jews had returned to make money or to enjoy middle-class German materialism. Ron Zuriel had come back to help his father set up a lucrative law practice handling reparation claims. He had never really made a decision to stay in Germany. He had never thought he was capable of living permanently in Germany: “It came about. My son was born here. In my profession you cannot go back and start again where you started. You climb to a perch. And here I had a job morning until night. I worked sixteen hours a day at least. Saturday and Sunday/’ Zuriel was making money and had no illusions that he was doing anything else. Asked if lie had come back to help Jews, he said, “Well, I was helping Jews, and I was helping myself. A lawyer who says he is in the Red Cross is a liar.” The law firm became more and more profitable. In the 1970s the reparation claim business under the West German Wiedergutmachung law started slowing down, and he switched to general civil law. In time his own son became a lawyer and joined the firm.

  In 1990 the firm began specializing in the section of the unification law dealing with restitution of nationalized property. According to this law, if a Jew had property confiscated by the Nazis and then the “Aryan” who received the property had it confiscated by the GDR state takeover of private property, the original Jewish claim would supersede that of the later owners. By 1993, there were about two million claims on confiscated GDR property. ZurieFs clients were Jewish and lived mostly in the United States and Canada but also in Israel and Western Europe. Virtually none of these Jews were interested in returning to Germany. They wanted to reclaim the property and then sell it at the plump prices of the postunification real estate market. “They never expected to get their property back,” said Zuriel with an ironic chuckle. For them, it was “a gift from heaven.”