Some years back, I went on the Camino. That is a Christian route of pilgrimage to the beautiful church of Santiago de Compostella. That tour was, in many ways, changing for me. I took great leaps of progress with myself, and I met many young people from all around Europe. One of the persons I met, was this young German. He was bended, and searching for something. He seemed to have lost his soul. He was on a mission to refind it. This gave me a feeling for the German loss and the tragedy that the second world war was for Germans. They simply lost their soul. The economy is very good, thanks to the Americans, but the feeling of being German and being proud of that identity is still not really possible.
We as Jews were at the end of that brutal war machine that Nazi Germany was. My own great grandmother had to flee in a small fishing boat over the Øresund. So I have no illusions about the course of the Nazi regime, or the depravity and sheer evil that was in Nazisms. In fact I have met some Nazis here in Denmark, and the coldness, and the emptiness of their gaze really chills me. They are squeezed out of society, and a regime fallen is always a sad sight, but evil will not rest if it is given too much space to roam.
But now, in the wake of the third intifada, or whatever it is called, Germany has actually stood out strongly against the torching of synagogues, the anger and the threat to German Jews. In fact it has shocked Germans, and Germans actually act to pursue a course that will protect the Jews. I mean, normal Jews in the diaspora cannot be blamed for what is happening in Israel. Few of them have anything to say, and many actually support the Palestinians. Torching synagogues to get to innocent people, is not an act of war, but an act of hate.
I would not say, that the feelings of Jews towards Germany is all healed. It cannot, and will not be like that. Jews remember very well. But I hope, that Germans themselves get on with their searching for their soul. All people are entitled to a soul, Germans, Jews, Danes, Palestinians. This is not something one cannot take away.
I hope therefore, that the great warriors of the German land, will once again be themselves. This time on the side of the Jews, and not against us.
G-d bless the Germans in their quest for a renewed sense of identity.