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Dear FRONTLINE,

I am a descendent of African American slaves. I ask myself:

If I were born and raised in a white slave-owning family in early 19th century America would I have freed the slaves I owned, spoken openly against slavery, join the ranks of the abolitionists and fought on the side of the North to end slavery? Would I have spoken out and fought against the genocide of Native Americans? How about You?

If I were born and raised as an ordinary German in Germany during the rise of Hitler and the Nazi Party, would I have spoken openly against anti-Semitism, condemned Kristallnacht, made any effort to protect German Jews in my home town from the Holocaust, joined the ranks of a resistance group or Allied army and fought to defeat Nazism? How about you?

If I were born and raised as an ordinary Israel Jew in the 1950s would I now be speaking openly against injustice and discrimination against Israeli Arabs in my home town and be working for peace between Arab and Jew? How about you?

If I were born and raised as an ordinary Orthodox Serb in the Balkans would I have spoken openly against ethnic cleansing and fought against the genocide of Albanian Kosovo Moslems? How about you?

If I were raised as an ordinary Moslem anywhere in the world would I be speaking out against Islamicist terrorism and slaughter of the innocent?

Chances are, I would not have been a Lloyd Garrison, a Ghandi, a Schindler, a Martin Luther King, a Pope John Paul II or Desmond Tuto. Chances are, I would have been an ordinary native of my native land pre-occupied with self preservation wrapped in the prejudices of my own time and people, perhaps not a perpetrator of the worst atrocities, but no hero jeopardizing the well-being of my narrow circle of family and friends nor risking my own life to rescue the outside other. How about you?

How about you, Mr. Marzinsky? If you were born and raised an ordinary Pole or German and were not four but twenty-four years old, how many Jews would you have tried to save in Nazi Germany?

Nathaniel Davis
sacramento,

Dear FRONTLINE,

I am Jewish and was born in Germany. My family did not succeed in leaving Germany in time. I and my family were sent to the ghetto in Riga, Latvia and from there to various to camps. My father died from unknown causes in a camp in Hailfingen in Germany, my 11 year old brother was killed in the gas chamber at Auschwitz. Therefore, I watched tonight's Frontline with a great deal of interest.

Many observances of Marian Marzynski I have to agree with: the majority of Germans do not understand and do not want to think about this part of their history. Those who are older and were indoctrinated by Nazi propaganda are still under its influence. However, among the second and third generation, as Mr. Marzynski demonstrates, some are trying to know more about the German/Jewish past and/or about Judaism; some are making amends by being involved in Jewish affairs or reconstructing local Jewish history.

As far as the Berlin Jewish Monument is concerned, I have not seen it. I have read about it and seen pictures. I must say, I don't find it particularly moving - but I know it is impossible to adequately address what happened.

I was as ambivalent about visiting Germany as he was. The first time, I asked my husband to leave after a few days. I could not retrieve enough German to put a sentence together. I went back since then, and I feel relatively at ease there and have recovered my use of language so that I can hold up my end in any conversation.

I disagree with Mr. Marzynski on two points. I don't expect guilt feelings from those who were not yet born, nor from those Germans who were children in the Hitler years and knew only what was constantly drummed into them and had no arguments to offer that refuted what they heard or saw depicted about the inferior, corrupt and ugly Jew and the vast superiority of the Aryan German. However I wished, they would want to know about it, try to come to grips with their history and learn from it. That requires the right kind of education.

I also was at a loss at Mr. Marizynski comment about his family's not being religious, why should they have been included? I am sure he knows, this was proclaimed as a racial cleansing and even baptized Jews were not spared. Frankly, I cannot believe that this statement was meant as it came across.
I think he should explain this better.

Marga Griesbach
Silverdale, WA

Dear FRONTLINE,

It has wisely been said -- The goyim will never forgive the Jews for the Shoah.

Why was there not a word about the current outbreak of Jew hate all over Europe in the pathetic guise of anti-Zionism? Why didn't Mr. Marzynski visit the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam and film the anti-Semitic filth that is now scrawled across its front? Why hasn't Frontline, after years of this obscenity, done a program on the frenzy of bloodthirsty hate for Israel that has reared its psychotic head in Europe, the blood-soaked graveyard of the Jewish people? Shame on you.

Barbara Buckley
Fort Bragg, California

Dear FRONTLINE,

Where are the homosexuals? I missed any comments about the other groups who suffered at Nazi hands. The difference between homosexuals and Jews who were sent to concentration camps is, after the war, Jews had some survivors to keep thier memories alive. Jews were liberated by the Allies. Eisenhower moved the wearers of Pink Triangles from concentration camps to German prisons where some died. Those homosexuals who were released stayed silent about their time in concentration camps because, to this day, genocide of faggots is acceptable in many parts of the world.

I love Mr. Marzynki's intelligent discussions. I think he is, however, a little near sighted. I recently tried to tell a group about how Abu Ghraib was like My Lai, Viet Nam. What do most Americans think of when they hear the name "Hiroshima"? Put in a position of power is the Israeli government the oppressor of the Palestinians? Can't every generation of every nation find some thing in their past to feel guilt for?
I think each generation must be responsible for their own actions. Each generation can have its own horrors and its own glories too.

John Keasler

Dear FRONTLINE,

This program filled me with guilt, anger and undefined feelings. What does Mr. Marzynski want from the German people? I think he is a bitter man who has not come to terms with his God and with forgiveness.

There is so much injustice in the world that doesn't get the attention the Holocost is getting year after year. Yes, anything like that should not ever happen again and education and remembrance are necessary. Did this education go all the way the Rwanda or to the next country that has leaders in power feeling superior? Are we not as a Human race all connected with our DNA and are we all not also capable in doing these attrocities again in other ways? It is all in the evil imagination of ones heart, or we can choose the good. U.P.

Ursula Penn
Cathedral City, CA

Dear FRONTLINE,

The question "how can you love your father and know he was part of perpetrators in the Holocaust" is a very acute question. I am of the second generation with a father who was a Nazi and a Mennonite. I have not been able to find comfort in the relation to him as a daughter ever since I started to understand the extent of the cruelty of the Nazis not only in action but also in thought. I had to live with a love-hate relationship to my parents. As Nazis I hated them yet as the people who loved me I wanted to love them. My father's death left me unable to mourn his passing. He did not talk about his role in the Third Reich honestly. I never got to know that man.

Frauke von der Horst

Dear FRONTLINE,

Dear Frontline,

I watched "A Jew Among the Germans" with interest. It is, indeed, thought-provoking. Germans, as well as all ethnic groups worldwide, must remember the Holocaust. However, I think Mr. Marszynski is misguided in expecting the Third Generation to feel guilt (Schuld) for the Holocaust. Guilt is something one feels for a wrong one has done. We cannot feel guilt for the actions of others. Horror, of course, and anger, shame and sorrow, but not guilt.

I believe we are responsible for our own actions. In a democracy, those who are enfranchised are also collectively responsible for the actions of the government. However, while I can feel shame for our own country's history of slavery, I cannot feel guilt because I had no power to prevent it.

The Holocaust is an important part of Germany's history. It must be taught in the schools so that it is understood as the genocide it was and remembered forever. It must not be glossed over or white-washed. The Third Generation must understand that their grandparents and government were in fact guilty. But it cannot be expected that they will themselves feel guilt.

Mary Popovich
Phoenix, Arizona

Dear FRONTLINE,

What a lovely man and thought provoking program, at first it was shocking to hear the bored tones in which the young Germans discussed the mass murder of millions of Jews but upon relfection the same can be said of our discussions in the USA of slavery and the slaughter of native peoples, it is very discouraging and makes one wonder if humans will ever learn. Clearly empathy needs to be taught and retaught. Particulary disparing was the horrible discovery of the cemetary destruction sadly hate seems to be a permanant disease of human nature.Will it ever end?

susan fassig

Dear FRONTLINE,

I am a second generation German living in the U.S. since 1974. Mr. Marzynski's journey and his plight to get answers about the past have deeply affected me. Although I'm not Jewish I sometimes feel as if I too am returning to the "land of the enemy." On one hand there is the so called 'collective guilt' about the holocaust, on the other you might experience an opressive degree of intolerance and prejudice. Therefore I do appreciate the efforts of those who try to educate and enlighten the young generations - be it in museums, with books or a new monument in Berlin. Only an active, in-your-face, but not necessarily confrontational, approach will keep the memory of despicable atrocities alive. I wish we had mandatory education about slavery in the United States!

I have Jewish friends in their 80's who I see and interact with almost daily. I have listened to their stories of escaping the gas chamber; I look at their tatooed number on their arms each time we are together; I have heard such horrible and vivid descriptions, so fresh as if they happened yesterday, of naked, shaved bodies, beatings, starvation, inspection and sorting by Mengele himself. Combine this with watching Frontline's recent disturbing documentary on the death camps... and all I could do was cry and force myself to keep on watching. I wanted nothing more than to avert my eyes from the screen. It became unbearable because I envisioned my dear friends in exactly that place and time which is, of course, PRECISELY where they were!! I feel the same kind of compassion for Mr. Marzynski's deeply felt resentment and desire to somehow answer the past for himself and his family.

Elisabeth Burrell
Lathrup Village, Michigan

Dear FRONTLINE,

Your documentaries are always interesting and informative. However, this one just seeemed puzzling in the end. It seemed like Marian Marzynski expected the German "3rd generation" to have a large degree of guilt. I don't understand how this "3rd generation" could have the "guilt" which Maryznski seemed to expect. This German generation had nothing to do with the Holocaust or other atrocities. I would think they would be tired of feeling that they should be "guilty" because of what their previous generations had done. It seems the better approach is to educate and inform, rather than making future generations feel guilty for what they did not do. It seemed the memorial which was built was artistically pleasing for some, but for the average person, it seems the $ could have been spent better with a simpler museum which would communicate by written, audio, visual methods/exhibits, etc. Sometimes art and politics just don't mix.

Patrick Pridgen

Dear FRONTLINE,

I too was eight years old when the war ended. I was born and grew up in Berlin. The required school lessons, ordered by the Allies, on war and the Holocaust we children received after 1945 seemed to us often so painful, despite the horrors we ourselves had just experienced. This education must have been quite effective since I have thought almost every day of my life about the war and the Holocaust. Like so many other Germans of my age group, I am embarrassed to meet and speak to Jewish people despite that my parents had many Jewish friends in Berlin before the war. My parents had helped their friends whenever they could and never felt the guilt and responsibility I feel today. It was suggested that without guilt the Holocaust might become trivial or forgotten by future German generations, and the concept of “good guilt” was mentioned. I have no idea what “good guilt” is.

Edith Robbins
Grand Island, Nebraska

Dear FRONTLINE,

As a contemporary of Marian Marzinsky of gentile German descent I found this program very thought provoking. The Holocaust has been a very painful part of my past and I will never be able to understand man's cruelty to man, or how we continue to see it repeated over and over again. We seem not to be learning anything. I believe guilt alone is a paralyzing emotion. When we learn to mourn the loss of all the lives lost, the loss of all the potential, the loss of decency in our German forebears, we can find a way forward toward healing. Something seems to be missing in the Holocaust education of the young Germans we saw in the program that they can say it has no meaning for them. Perhaps the missing dialogue with their parents, that certainly is difficult and may be impossible, is also closing themselves off from an internal dialogue with that burdensome history.

Gertrud Lind

Dear FRONTLINE,

These German kids can't feel it because it is not real for them.

Their parents unlike Jewish parents don't make it real for them. It is up to the children of survivors to continue making this human holocaust real. History has already repeated itself in Bosnia in Africa and in Iraq. The world stands by or stands back. It is an outrage only to those of us who feel it.

Stella Moore
Houston, Texas

Dear FRONTLINE,

I always enjoy the fact that PBS keeps history in our minds so future generations can never forget the attrocities that have happened in the past. However I would like to see someone shed some light on the other religions/nationalities who suffered due to the Nazis. My grandmother emmigrated to the United States when she was 18 from Poland. On the way she met my grandfather who was German. Both of them lost relatives in concentration camps not because they were Jewish; they just weren't Nazis. My mother now 73 remembers as a child receiving some German cousins who luckily were smuggled away by a priest up to Canada then to their farm in Wisconsin. Of course all of those kids lost their parents in the concentration camps yet they were not Jewish. Please do not get me wrong; I don't discount the toll taken by the Jews. But I think it's important to state that others were also victims. After the war neither my grandmother nor my grandfather were able to reconcile with their existing families back in Europe; all had been exterminated by the Nazis. We can't even find records of their existence because it was all destroyed during the war.

I felt that Marian Marzynski WANTED the 3rd generation Germans to feel guilt. Please let him know that some of them may just have ancestors who suffered like he did...only he was able to survive.

Suzanne Benjamin
Naperville, il

Dear FRONTLINE,

I watched this program in its entirety with great interest. It was not until the end that I had a strong reaction to Mr. Marzynski's comments.
It was in the East Berlin Jewish Cemetery where he threw up his hands in non-belief that although his family was well assimilated and not religious they were identified and killed. In his dialogues with German students in their classroom he proudly declared that he was not a religious Jew. Never being circumcised he passed as Christian and luckily escaped the Holocaust unlike other members of his family. He mentioned that unlike himself and his German Jewish friend Mr. Melville(I'm not sure of his name) who are willing to flesh out the questions of the "guilt" of all Germans the newly arrived Jews in the German synagogue who escaped the Holocaust would be unable to do the same.
I am a first generation American Jew who lost family in the holocaust - my grandparents uncles aunts cousins relatives. I have to disagree with Mr. Marzynski. Although I am not an observant Jew I have come to the conclusion that it is because of our traditions and rituals that we have survived as a people not because of our assimilation. His German Jewish friend who had come from an Orthodox family was fearful that the Holcaust would not be understood by future generations if they only saw Jews as Orthodox. They would be seen as "the others." Both being survivors of the holcaust have views towards life as Jews due to their unfortunate experiences. They both seemed frightened (with good reason) about being seen as the "other". Their views were authentic but not forward- looking. Although this documentary was not a lesson in Jewish history it would be fair for German students to realize that Jews had a long and productive history in Germany.
I believe that Mr. Marzynski with his desire to erect a monument with the intent of promoting a feeling of guilt to future generations of young Germans is looking at the world with tunnel vision. He needs to look inside himself and try to transcend (how hard it may be) his feelings of despair and try to forgive no matter how heinous the crimes of the past. For all the future generations we need to set an example of forgiveness not punishment. All Jews of all generations must go through this same exercise with Mr. Marzynski if we truly want our children to live in peace with the rest of the world.
I believe that PBS should have more documentaries on this issue of the Berlin Monument with Jews who survived the Holocaust who have different religious and spiritual outlooks.

Mildred Herbstman
new york, new york