The New Past and Future

Short summary of articles
Why Berlin? ? is the question posed by our Nobel-prize winning writer Imre Kertész, who himself provides an answer to this paradoxical question: why, as a one-time inmate of Auschwitz and the author of a universal novel about the Holocaust, did he choose to live in Berlin? With this choice he opted for a contemporary Germany able to face its role in the Holocaust, rather than Hungary where such courage is painfully lacking. This choice influences both our daily existence and today?s other choices. Our present issue deals not only with the encouraging example of Germany but also addresses the effect of this example. Many of our authors, such as György Fehéri, guest-editor of this issue, are living in Berlin generations after the Holocaust. By returning to Berlin, an old tradition is reestablished: the culture of Hungarian Jews has long been influenced by Germany. This connection was shattered by the Holocaust, but now the possibility exists for Hungarian Jews to renew it. (Our ties to Hungarian culture do not need to be reestablished ? even the Holocaust could not kill it ? but trust must be urgently recovered and emotional wounds healed.) For many years György Fehéri paid attention to Berlin?s gestures toward Jews, and the memory of the Holocaust as represented on the pages of our journal. In his photo-essay he gives an overall summary of how the united Berlin, a metropolis bursting with life faces the memory of its Jewry.
Michael K. Silber?s essay ?The Historical Experience of German Jewry and its Impact on Haskalah and Reform in Hungary? is illuminating in its exploration of the original connection that linked Hungarian to German Jewry. Judit Nirán (whom we know as a researcher of Jewish music under the name Judit
Frigyesi) draws picture of her complicated relationship to Berlin in a lyrical confession. Eszter Susán (a member of the youngest generation of Hungarian Jewish intellectuals) analyzes Walter Benjamin?s experiences of Berlin under the shadow of the Holocaust. The essay by Yirmiahu Yovel on the vocation of Ágnes Heller deals with an event in the recent past: in October
2006 Ágnes Heller received an important prize bearing the name of the great German Jewish philosopher Hermann Cohen. Before the coming to power of Hitler, ever since the appearance of Moses Mendelssohn, the German capital was one of the most important centers of Jewish science and literature.
Brigitta Eszter Gantner elaborates on the subject in her essay ?The Role of Berlin in Establishing Modern Hungarian Culture?. So does Michael L. Miller (an American researcher and professor at CEU who learned our language and also our culture) in his piece ?The Fugitives of Numerus Clausus at Institutions of Higher Education in Berlin, 1920-1933.? The enthusiastic report by József Patai, ?At the Center of Jewish Culture,? written in 1919, provides a snapshot of Berlin at the rare moment when Germany, following the Bolshevik revolution, gave shelter to nearly half a million refugees ? among them the leading representatives of modern Hebrew literature. As a result of this, for a couple of years, before these people settled in Palestine, Berlin was the center of Hebrew literature. Patai?s piece is all the more relevant today because the phenomenon has repeated itself. Many writings on the subject are discussed in this issue, most of all the writing of Lena Gorelik, a Russian immigrant already writing in German. Several interviews deal with the everyday Jewish life of today?s Berlin, among them a particularly engaging account by Ádám Kerpel-Fronius, who now works as a tourist guide at the Berlin Holocaust Memorial. His multifaceted experience provides a striking reflection of the present state of German-Jewish relations.
One issue does not suffice to present the rich and invaluable material we have gathered on this subject; hence additional essays will appear in the coming issue.
Andrea Dunai presents his extensive research on the fate of Ferenc Hatvany?s works of art: and on the contradictory history of German. By examining the fate of a Hungarian Jewish musician born in Berlin and died in Auschwitz, György Dalos introduces the complicated tissue of Hungarian, German and Jewish relations. An extract from the autobiography of Edit Gyömrôi, living in Berlin, and an essay about her by Anna Borgos throw light on a person whom we mostly know from the role she played in the life of Attila József.
Finally the issue closes with a profound example of today?s German
consciousness: György Fehéri?s interview with a German intellectual who explores the Holocaust drawings of Edit Kiss.

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Content

Imre Kertész: Why Berlin?

György Fehéri: Monuments, Memorial places in Berlin

Michael K. Silber: The Historical Experiences of the German Jew and Their Effect on Hungarian Jewish Enlightenment

Judit Nirán: 2006, Berlin

Ágnes Berger: Cobblestones Remembering

Eszter Susán: Arcades in Berlin

Yirmiahu Yovel: Laudatio on the Occasion of Agnes heller's Receiving Hermann Cohen-prize

Josef Patai: In the center of Jewish Culture

Brigitta Eszter Gantner: The role of Berlin in Establishing Modern Hungarian Culture

Michael M. Miller: "The Fugitives of Numerus Clausus" at the Institutes of Higher Educations in Berlin between 1920 and 1933

Lena Gorelik: "Germany Accepts"

Lena Gorelik: My White Nights

Hartmut Bomhoff: We Anticipated Berlin to be an important Jewish Center

Adrienn Gábor (Schwalb): Cantors of Berlin

Ádám Kerpel-Fronius: Day-to-Day Remembrance

**: Figyelő

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