WALTER LAQUEUR
413
The boy or girl sixteen years of age in 1933 (or in 1939) was not an
unwritten page. But the years that have passed since have decisively influ–
enced their emotions and their judgment. Some have refused, as a matter of
principle, to set foot on German soil. But more have returned for visits, and
some have stayed. These include the young Communists who returned
soon after the war to build (as they thought) a new and better Germany in
the East. They also include a few who went with their parents to the Soviet
Union and, for a while, felt that they and they alone had the good fortune
to be present at the creation of a new world. This is the spirit that emanates
from one of the first such accounts ever published, Wolfgang Leonhard's
Child
if
the Revolution
(1957), or from that of Markus Wolf (the East
German spy chief),
DieTroika
(1988), wri tten many years later. They lived
to
realize that their god had failed. But they are not the only disappointed old
men and women of that generation. The young pioneers who went to the
kibbutzim
in the 1930s faced a life without television, air conditioning, or
very often a room of their own. But there was a climate of idealism, opti–
mism, and sacrifice which has vanished with the tremendous changes that
have taken place not just in the
kibbutzim
but in Israeli society in general.
Some returned to Germany for extended visits because they became
professors of German history or literature or some other German topic.
But it is doubtful whether this involvement in things German will last
more than one generation, as their interest is not being transmitted to their
children and grandchildren.
In
Israel, interest in Germany was probably less than in any other
country.
In
his 1988 autobiography, Uri Avneri is much more concerned
with Palestinian Arabs than with his German schoolmates. Many Israelis
have made use of invitations from their native cities and have revisited the
si tes of their early years-the houses where they were born, the schools
they attended (to the extent that these were still standing)-but the shock
of recogni tion, if any, was not overwhelming; it was a matter of mild inter–
est rather than deep nostalgia or painful trauma. They had been too young
when they left to suffer deeply or to feel the loss very acutely. There was
not much love, but there was not much hate either.
Since the Israeli passport is not the most convenient one internation–
ally, thousands of Israelis have acquired a German passport in addition, as
a matter of convenience rather than out of identification with the country
from which they were expelled. Many of their children who were not even
born in Germany have done the same. The relationship between Germany
and erstwhile German Jews in Israel is clearly dictated by pragmatism
rather than by emotion.
The boys and girls who left Germany after 1933 did have political con–
victions of sorts, but it is not surprising that in the light of their subsequent
