הנאום סבתא - הטקסט המלא

Dear honorable Ambassador, Dr. Kindermann,
Dear Counselor, Head of Cultural Department, Mr. Martin Schroeter, 
Very dear guests from Israel and Family Gruenberg from Hamburg. 
Last not least, I want to address my family: Beloved absent husband, Aba Saba Moshe, My children, grandchildren and Evyatar, our first born great grandchild May their number be as countless as the stars in Heaven - as God has promised.

This year it is 70 years after the so called Crystal-night and 70 years since I was expelled from Germany, just before finishing school, 70 years since I last saw my parents and my three young sisters. My grandchildren call me Grandma-Savta, but my four children here never knew their grandparents; they don't know even their language - neither understand, nor read or speak German, because I abandoned this language for more than 40 years, feeling as if it had betrayed me. It is for them that I am asking your permission to speak English, even if my Hebrew and German are much more fluent.

Hopefully you will understand my inner conflict not only concerning the language, but also - a certain hesitation accepting the Bundesverdienstkreuz. Years ago I would have turned it down, because then I wanted to cut all and any connection to Germany. Today my doubts are of entirely other concern, that is: whether I am at all entitled to earn this honor.

Because: If really and only outstanding persons should be recognized and honored as "connecter", as bridge-builder between Jews and Germans – while the Shoah, the Holocaust constantly lies between them, I feel obliged to mention the education I got at home by my parents: My mother Charlotte Helene Carlebach, nee Preuss; she is Lotte Carlebach, the mother of nine children considering every child as her only one. "Jedes Kind ist mein Einziges". This was her original wording. In the last minute before the disaster for Jews in Germany reached the most inhuman zenith, she succeeded to send out of that country five of her children to save their lives; but she herself had to endure a most cruel death together with her three youngest daughters: my Sisters: Ruth 15, Noemi 14 and Sara 13 years old, and also together with her husband, my father.

 My father, Chief Rabbi Dr. Joseph Carlebach was known not only as a deep religious man, expert in Bible and Talmud, but extremely broad-minded; he was at home in the natural

 sciences, in History of art  and German classics. He was also a phenomenal speaker, but last – and by no means least - a child oriented teacher and educator, practicing his fascinating way with children even in the severe ice-cold winter in Concentration camp Jungfernhof in Latvia. He regarded children as potential Messiahs, paraphrasing Napoleon's famous epigram, "Every French soldier carries the marshal's baton in his knapsack" into the following one: "Every Jewish child carries Messiah's scepter in his satchel".

 After more than 15 years cooperation of the Joseph Carlebach Institute with the University of Hamburg - our last common conference was dedicated to this Jewish child, and thus formulated: "The Jewish Child between a hopeless past and a hopeful Future". That does not mean asking for a future of miracles beyond the laws of creation, but only for a very natural and simple development: that the old, the grandparents should enjoy watching their grandchildren playing to their feet, in the streets of Jerusalem. This is the explanation of my grandson Shay, who is present here, of prophet Sacharja's biblical statement.

 In connection to the mentioned 70 years allow me to cite a short passage of a prayer composed by Rabbi Carlebach for the occasion of being elected as Chief Rabbi in Hamburg, in the year 1936, as follows:

"Please God, guard our holy community with its splendid synagogues …, built to your honor, not to be destroyed…and guard our children that they'll not be scattered from one Diaspora to the other all over the world, leaving the family table in lonely agony…" It was like a painful vision of a disaster which he feared - and wanted to prevent it through this prayer.

Surprisingly he ended this hard envision with sentences, which were in those times rather perplexing and even embarrassing: "Please God, bless the country Germany, where we were born and living there for hundred of years, and give your blessing to our praised town, which gave us shelter for a long period."

 During the war and more so immediately after its end, when I myself, like thousands of families in Israel and abroad were confronted with the bare facts of an unbelievable truth about the Holocaust – I was asked: On the one hand Rabbi Carlebach sensed the coming catastrophe: the destruction of the synagogues, the  end of the tortured Jewish communities including even their children – and on the other hand -  in the light of all that, what made him pray, asking for blessing - for this country and this town which deported him, together with his beloved family and his suffering members of  the congregation, old and young and babies… ,

People asked and cheated me for being the daughter of such a naive man and me – for believing in this naive vision…

And even I was struggling with myself and arguing in my heart with my father, as follows:

Please, help me to understand your way of thinking, your blessings, while the most objective logical thought and the rational sense and the most understandable emotions were crying for blaming and hating not only the murderers, but also their town and country with their rich language, their art and their science - from now to eternity.

After years without finding any answer, I decided to study in purpose to learn his philosophy of religion and life. At the age of forty seven I had to pass my matriculation to enter University, to learn History and Education, Jewish History and Jewish Education with never satisfied hunger to go deeper into the understanding of the Tohu Wavohu of human ways.

And then surprisingly I found a certain answer to my nagging question in the following episodically event: When Joseph Carlebach volunteered for military service in the First World War he was ordered to go to Lithuania, to "import" German culture into the brains and hearts of the Jewish community there. For this purpose he founded a Jewish High School in Kowno, and named it: Carlebach Gymnasium i.E. - in Entwicklung; its translation is: i.D. in Development. This-his believe in development, indicating the never ending movement toward a change, towards the good and the better world gave him the strength to look far far beyond the inevitable disaster. And where to? Toward God's blessing for men who are struggling for a better world, creating mankind with a new heart, a new soul and a new spirit.

This is what I would call real greatness: The steadiness to look beyond the years of agony, disaster and murder to times of deserved blessings.

This became the accompanying guideline for me: not from the very beginning, not easily accepted, only after years of doubts, of research and inquiries, founding the Joseph Carlebach Institute, caring for its existence and for its development. But the guideline was to look forward into the ever and always moving i. D. in Development

 Thus I came to the conclusion that Joseph Carlebach was looking far beyond certain time-connected events. That is: On the one hand: The fate of the Jewish - of my people, my family, my parents - mother and father and my three youngest sisters -

and on the other hand: The prayer toward a blessing for Germany i.D.: in Development and for the German city Hamburg, offering friendship and peaceful relationship.

 Therefor Joseph Carlebach is the person who should be honored, he is the one who should get the Bundesverdienstkreuz together with my mother  - accompanying and not leaving him in the most critical times and dangerous situations.

 Dear Dr. Kindermann, dear guests and dearest family, with the permission from all of you I want to repeat here only the concluding words of Rabbi Carlebach's prayer - in German and in Hebrew:

Banne Krieg und Streit bis an die Enden der Welt und lass Frieden und Eintracht wohnen zwischen allen Familien des Erdbodens, den Nahen und den Fernen.

Und bald in unseren Tagen werde Juda geholfen mit ewigem Heil und Israel wohne in Sicherheit…baldigst in unseren Tagen! …

... השבת מלחמות וּקרָב עד קצה הארץ והשכן שלום ורעות בין כל משפחות האדמה הקרובים והרחוקים; ובקרוב בימינו תושע יהודה תשועת עולמים וישראל תשכון לבטח ...במהרה בימינו אמן.

 My gratitude and my thanks to you, Dr. Kindermann in the name of the whole family, presented here by my children, my grandchildren and Evyatar, my first born great grandson. He will present you, Dr. Kindermann a modest gift.

 Evyatar: "This is a photo-book about the Carlebach family centered on my great-great-grandfather, Rabbi Joseph Carlebach".

 Miriam Gillis-Carlebach