The Berlin state senate is systematically inviting former Jewish residents to revisit the city they once called home.
The city’s Emigrants’ Visitor Program has actively kept in touch with all known former Jewish residents of the city, wherever they may happen to live, worldwide.
Currently, the city maintains contact with nearly 12,000 emigres.
Twice a year, the emigrants receive their free copy of “Aktuell”. The magazine informs them of current developments in their former hometown. It also features a forum in which people can search for long-lost friends and relatives.
So far, almost 33,000 former Berliners have responded to the city’s invitation to visit Berlin.
Created by the city senate in 1969, the programme pays the full cost of the visitor’s flight, hotel, meals and tours.
Budget cuts
Since its inception, the programme’s budget has been cut from 3 million to a little over 400,000 euros, from which the visits and “Aktuell” magazine are financed.
The city’s shrinking financial resources may be the primary culprit for the smaller budget. However, most of the people who have shown an interest in returning to their native city have already done so.
Today “Aktuell” readers are no longer flooded with books and other gifts and the four official tours that took place yearly have shrunk to two. Still, the program continues to benefit most former Berliners who see it as a connection to their past, or perhaps as a form of partial compensation.
Ruediger Nemitz, who currently runs the Visitor Program, told the Juedische Allgemeine Zeitung (JAZ) weekly, that the program was an unexpected success from its very inception. “When we began, the waiting list was extremely long […] now it has become manageable,” he said.
Mixed feelings
No one expected that so many people who suffered Nazi persecution would ever want to return to their former home. “I would never set foot in Germany again,” is a oft-heard comment of countless emigres.
The majority have not returned. Most of those who did came with mixed feelings. Many were coaxed into going by their children.
“My mother would never have dreamed of returning to Germany on her own – even though she had many opportunities to do so since the programme’s onset […] We were finally able to coax her into going,” Henry Kirsch, a Los Angeles native told EJP.
Like countless of emigrant descendents, Kirsch was able to trace lost family members through “Aktuell”.
The programme has helped people maintain a link to a place that was once the centre of their lives.
“So many people just wanted to see their old home, one last time”, Nemitz told JAZ. Many more will follow.
This visitor’s program is offered by some other cities through Germany, such as Frankfurt, and in Austria.
By Oliver Bradley in Berlin |