Dezember in Deutschland

-Daniel Maier-Katkin

December 1, 2010

I came with this in mind:

to search for such a place and time

as scalds memory

with intense comprehension

of the pain of others.

Not at Dachau

where the walls are painted white,

the ashes planted deep,

the ghosts dispersed to many winds.

Emptiness prevails where darkness reigned.

Not the narrow streets of old cities

with their signs of earlier habitation,

ancient Judengassen and strassen,

here and there some Rabbi’s home or school,

a few artifacts of pious lives, a synagogue

that went brightly into that dark Kristallnacht,

(now lovingly reconstructed

“to honor them and be reminded”)

Christmas day,

In an ancient Judenfriedhof

that somehow had survived,

I sang the Mourner’s Kaddish

and prayed and cried

among old stones

that mark the final rest

of others of our tribe.

Fanni Levi and Jette Neu

(Mutter und Tochter im Tode vereint)

Families of Levis and Cohens,

Loewes and Baers;

Gustave Herbst

near Alvine Herbst (aged nine).

I placed a pebble on the grave of Rifka Meier,

the last one buried there,

before the flood of fire.

These descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob

avoided an awful fate

by departing early,

and I by arriving late.

We might weep together,

but could not say: “we’d been there too.”

And all the while church bells rang

and choirs sang

to celebrate the birth of one who died

(whose mother, helpless, stood and cried),

and in short I was afraid.

Daniel Maier-Katkin, a graduate of the City College of New York, Columbia Law School and the Institute of Criminology at Cambridge University, is Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice and a Fellow of the Center for the Advancement of Human Rights at Florida State University. He was a member of the faculty at Penn State University for more than twenty years, serving as Department Head for more than half of that time. He moved to Florida State University in 1994 to take up the position of Dean of the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, continuing in that role for ten years.  Maier-Katkin is the author of more than fifty articles and books focusing on criminal law, civil rights, civil liberties, international human rights and crimes against humanity including most recently articles in Human Rights Quarterly, Theoretical Criminology, Tikkun, and Harvard Review. His recent book Stranger From Abroad Hannah Arendt, Martin Heidegger, Friendship and Forgiveness (W.W. Norton, March 22, 2010) has been widely reviewed including a front page review in the Sunday New York Times Book Review Section, The Washington Post, London Times, The Independent of London, Literary Review, Manna, Irish Times, New Scotsman, and Woodrow Wilson Quarterly, as well as a starred review in Book List.