Moving beyond 'negative symbiosis'
DEBORAH SUSSMAN SUSSER
Staff Writer
Andrew Gross grew up Jewish in Arizona. Like typical American Jews of his generation, he says, he watched the television series "The Holocaust" but didn't know about Judaism. "Ours was the kind of Jewish family where I took Sunday school on Sunday so I could play soccer on Saturday."
Meanwhile, in Germany, the woman he would one day marry studied the Holocaust every year in school and yet knew next to nothing about Jews and Judaism.
These are just two of the many paradoxes Gross has come across in his examination of how the Holocaust is represented, both here and in Germany.
Gross, who received his Ph.D. in English from the University of California-Davis, first taught a class in the literature of the Holocaust when he was a graduate student. In 2002, he received a Fulbright to teach in Berlin, as a guest lecturer at the Freie Universitat Berlin. He taught a course for German students on representations of the Holocaust, in which "we talked a lot about cross-cultural issues" such as how the Holocaust is memorialized in the United States. Currently he teaches a summer session for UC-Davis students on representations of the Holocaust in Berlin.
"The (summer session) course does two things," Gross says. "First, I want them to learn about how the Holocaust is commemorated in Berlin." And second, he says, he wants to address the question of "how do you go to these sites that commemorate the most awful, awful thing that happened in history and still have fun in the city?" One student, for example - "a laid-back surfer guy from Santa Barbara" - wanted to know, "Is it OK to pick up a girl at the Jewish Museum in Berlin?"
Gross says the American students tend to know a lot about the Holocaust when they arrive. Out of 10 students this past summer, "I was surprised that not one of them was Jewish," Gross says. "But they've all seen 'Schindler's List,' and they've all read Anne Frank."
Holocaust education in Germany is somewhat different, Gross says. "The paradox of Holocaust education is that in Germany, history class is all about the Holocaust," Gross says. Up until recently, however, there has been very little emphasis on the Jews themselves, he says.
Another paradox: Berlin has the fastest growing Jewish community in Europe, and Gross says there is "an increased awareness of Jews and Judaism in Germany." He points to the Jewish museum in Berlin, which he says is the second most visited museum in the city, as an example of this trend.
Asked about the alleged rise of anti-Semitism in Europe, Gross says that he's "not feeling it" in Berlin. "Being an American Jew in Berlin, I'm quite comfortable." He notes that Touro College, which takes a specifically Jewish approach to education, has just opened in Berlin, and Hillel is planning to open a center there.
Gross, who studied literature in graduate school, had "worked a lot in the literature of genocide." That led him to a study of Holocaust literature, of which he was initially wary. "From an academic perspective, (the Holocaust) is probably the most studied subject in the world," he says, and he was initially suspicious of what he calls "the popularization" of the Holocaust. But he's since come to believe that if looking at the Holocaust critically "increases people's moral and historical awareness, then good. Just because 'Schindler's List' exists doesn't mean I or somebody else shouldn't criticize it."
Gross's wife, Ingrid Stapf, is a philosopher who is finishing her dissertation in media ethics. "I feel like I'm part of a trend," Gross laughs. "We've noticed several Jewish-American/non-American-Jewish couples in Berlin."
Because his wife is German, Gross says, "We had to traverse this entire history in our relationship. We were invariably talking about this." He quotes the German philosopher Dan Diner, who wrote: "Jews and Germans will always exist in this relationship of negative symbiosis."
Perhaps. But Gross and Stapf seem to be moving beyond just negative symbiosis. For starters, they have an 8-month-old daughter, Mathilda, who will be raised bilingually, with dual citizenship, and knowing both religions (Stapf is Catholic). And together, Mathilda's parents are taking evening classes in Yiddish.
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