"The truth will make us free" (cf.John 8,32)

Simon Schoon

Before the visit of Queen Beatrix to Israel at the end of March 1995 there was an emotional discussion in Israel amongst former Dutch citizens, which discussion was widely published in the media in Holland.  The question was: Will the Queen speak the truth about the past in her address to the Knesset? Or would her words support the myth in Israel about the `heroic Holland', the myth that all the Dutch, or almost all the Dutch, were brave in the Second World War and were involved in saving Jews? The historical truth is different. Influenced by the letters of former Dutch Israelis Knesset Speaker Shevah Weiss mentioned the facts that a very high percentage of Dutch Jews was murdered during the Shoa and that there was a relatively high number of Dutch SS-members. It was important to break a taboo. Only the truth can make us free. Without the complicity of many Dutch officials the deportation of so many Jews could not have happened. Also the Queen spoke the truth in the Knesset. She mentioned and honoured the brave persons who rescued Jews from the Nazi's but she called them clearly exceptions. In her address to the nation on Christmas Day 1994 she spoke even clearer: "Resistance was not common. Most people prefered to live as normal as possible, just to survive for themselves. Therefore, there eyes just looked the other way, when in the daylight very dark things happened. Others were against their will victims of the regime. They had no choice; the brutal violence struck people without distinction. Some have chosen totally wrong; after fifty years next generations still bear the wounds". 

Truth
It is a relief that these historical facts are openly mentioned. The many trees for Dutch heroes in the Forest for the Righteous Gentiles in YadwaShem cannot conceal the truth. And only the truth will set us free. But what is truth? The word is a quotation, taken out of its original context, from a story on discussions between Jesus and Jewish leaders in the Gospel of John, chapter 8. This chapter is a projection of the tensions between the early Christian Church and the Jewish community at the end of the first century. In later centuries this chapter is quoted and recited many times as a historical report on the hatred of the Jews against Jesus. So these Gospel quotations were used to confirm and strenghten Christian antisemitism and to support the anti-Jewish attitude of the Church. In several languages these words from the Gospel became a traditional saying "Only the truth shall make you free". But what is truth? Historical research will tell us the full truth, people say. But the Dutch historian    Von der Dunk, who wrote a book on the Shoa, emphasizes that there is no valuefree historical science[1]. Also in the Historikerstreit in Germany all the different positions on the meaning, uniqueness and significance of the Shoa were ideolocically and politically coloured and motivated. It is difficult to interpret the historical phenomena. Ronny Naftaniel, Director of the Centre for Information and Documentation on Israel in the Hague, wrote in the Utrechts Nieuwsblad, that a new soulsearching debate on the Dutch attitude towards the Jews in the Second World War would not be helpful at all for Dutch-Israeli relations in the present time. Again an ideological and political motivation! He notes that after the war Dutch-Israeli relations became very strong because of several reasons: For some religious reasons, for others cultural and political. For Naftaniel a new debate (comparable with the debate on the Dutch role in the Indonesian independence war at the end of the forties) is not necessary. I doubt that. Remembrance means also knowing as much as possible about the facts of the past. Indeed, the truth will set us free. But truth is - at least in the biblical sense - does not mean knowing all the exact facts of history. In the Hebrew Bible and also in the New Testament truth means faithfullness, a better translation of Emunah. How do we commemorate and how do we remember? Are we faithful to the memory of the victims and to the feelings of the survivors? Is there a collective feeling of shame because of the complicity and bystanders attitude of so many in the times of darkness? Have we after the war taken up the challenge of freedom? Have we learned to integrate what has happend in our personal and communal moral warning system? Or is the fiftieth celebration of the Liberation in 1945 a last tribute to the victims and heroes of the darkest night of the twentieth century? But also a kind of farewell party at the end of this century, sothat we can turn a leaf over and start a new page? Many have become very tired of the sad stories from fifty years ago and the endless documentaries on tv in the last months. Young people want to look at the future. It is in Israel probably not different than in Holland. The question for us all is: How can we learn the lessons from the past? How do we remember for the future?

Remembrance
In Holland there is an ongoing discussion on the continuity in the future of the commemoration of the fourth of May, Remembrance Day, and the celebration of the fifth of May, Liberation Day. Some are of the opinion, that commemoration and celebration must be stopped on the moment that the last survivors of the war have died. Others defend the ongoing significance of keeping up these national traditions, also after the year 2000. The question is: Means that what is remembered on the fourth and fifth of May more than any other memory of catastrophe and liberation in the past? Not a historical debate can decide this question. There is no mathematic method to measure and to compare catastrophes. The Second World War was the last great war in which Holland was involved. The question if this experience will remain a strong part of the national memory, only the future will reveal. Must it be officially stimulated by the government and the churches? Or does it create a dangerous national myth and a discriminatory stereotype of the `ugly German'? This stereotype proofs to be very strong and alive in Holland, especially in times of Dutch-German confrontations in the foothball championship. Another related question is: Can the fourth of May be integrated in the liturgical calendar of the churches, comparable with Yom Ha Shoa in the Jewish context? It is also put forward in discussions in the churches to place Yom ha Shoa on the liturgical calendar. In this way there would be every year a liturgical reminder to the complicity of the churches in the time of the Shoa, but also a possibility to mourn with the survivors and an important opportunity to warn against new forms of antisemitism.

Memory
But is there a collective memory? And is it possible to organize and stimulate something like that? What is to remember and to commemorate? Could Christians perhaps learn from the Jewish experience? Yerushalmi has shown that remembrance in Jewish tradition rests upon a very selective memory[2] The verb `zakhar' occurs 169 times in Tanakh; most of the times with the God of Israel as subject.  To remember is a very central biblical command. But it is not a exhortation to study history in the modern sense. Biblical remembrance is selective. Achab for example was in secular history a very powerful and successful king. In the Bible he is an example of wickedness - he did everything what was wrong in the eyes of the Lord. The Exodus from Egypt is not recorded in secular history but in Tanakh this story became the cornerstone of the collective Jewish memory. After the destruction of the Second Temple the Jewish People stopped with writing history. In the words of Prof.Mendes Flohr: "Banished from their ancestral home, dispersed and subject in varying measure to the humiliations of a despised minority, the Jews of Galut were, so to speak, secluded from history - from the instruments of social and political power that provide a people with a sense that they can shape history[3]Zionism meant a return into history. This movement also brought about a new historical consciousness. The Jewish People was back on the[3]stage of history, in and around Jerusalem, aware of its own identity, master of its own destiny. New dates were put - not without an until today ongoing debate - on the religious calendar: Yom ha-Shoa and Yom ha-Atsmaout. Only the future can learn if these dates will be as strong grounded in the collective Jewish Memory as the day of Tisha be-Av and the festival of Pesach.

Liturgy
Do Christians have similar experiences in their tradition? In the past Christian religious experience, especially the Protestant, is much more shaped by the christological dogmas than by liturgical memory. Revelation is understood as final and definite in the events of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. In this conception there is no room for further revelation. There is a lot of rethinking and reorientation needed to open up Christian tradition for new insights on the significance and dynamics of remembrance. There are some signs of rethinking and renewal on the theological and liturgical level, just there were Christians have discovered that their faith is rooted in the Hebrew Bible and linked up in a special way with the Jewish people. When, for example, Christians have discovered that the most central liturgical celebration in the church - the Eucharist or Holy Communion - is rooted in in the Jewish Seder that Jesus celebrated with his disciples, then a new type of remembrance and of celebrating liberation can appear. Then, Holy Communion is not experienced as a kind of metaphysical event of being cleansed from personal sins but as a communal act of remembrance and a liturgical representation of liberation. Just as the Jew speaks at the Seder `In every generation let each person regard himself as though he had come forth out of Egypt", so the Christian follows Jesus in his Exodus through death into life and commits him- or herself to a new liberated life. So, the Christian memory is just as selective as the Jewish. There were many crosses around Jerusalem in the time of the Roman occupation. Yet, the Christian derives his hope from this particular event. To say it with the words of Prof.Mendes-Flohr: "Hope is a divine gift, an eschatological promise, that the future bears a `new beginning'. From the perspective of the eschatological future, affirmed in faith, the menaning of history becomes manifest[4]
Hope
But is hope not totally and definitely destroyed in the night of the Shoa? Is it possible to celebrate any liberation after the Kingdom of the Night? Is it not religiously indecent to speak the same words in liturgy, to use the same prayers, after the confrontation with the silence of God in Auschwitz? Must we not realize with Rabbi Irving Greenberg that the Shoa is a radical counter testimony to Judaism and Christianity?[5] Is it possible to interpret the Shoa as a new orienting or revelatory event? Do we hear - with André Neher - the perhaps of hope from the silence of Auschwitz?[6]Have Christians recognized wit shame, that the Shoa revealed the demonic consequences of some Christian doctrines and showed the anti-Jewish potential of hatred of sacred texts in the New Testament? Have Christians realized that the anti-Jewish cancer is so deeply hidden in the Christian flesh, that only sincere repentance can bring healing and renewal? Have we heard and understood - to speak with Emil Fackenheim - the commanding voice of Auschwitz, that we donot allow Hitler to win a posthumous victory? Have we listened to the voice of the twentieth century Job in the writings of Elie Wiesel? There are only questions and no answers. If we reject as blasphemous the notion that God was the author of the Shoa, how can we still accept God as the Lord of History and how can we discover the Hand of God and his faithfullness in the return of the Jewish People to Jerusalem?   In the midst of the burning questions, even in the deepest night, Elie Wiesel pleads for the continuity of prayer: "Adam looked at the future and his heart was filled with sadness. His head in his hands, he wanted to ask the Creator: `But why, why?' If God answered, his reply escapes us. We only have the question. But is is we who must turn to prayer. A call to combat evil. A warning against indifference. A song which, in spite of everything, will try to justify the first gleam of a hope which is yet to be born[7]

Sign
The founders of Nes Ammim wanted to give a kind of response to the disturbing realization that Christian doctrine had contributed to the genocide on the Jewish People in the heart of Europe. Without knowing the answers to all the historical and theological questions, they understood somehow the commanding voice of Auschwitz. They wanted to support the attempt to recreate the image of God - in the words of Irving Greenberg. Therefore the built up a community in the State of Israel as a sign of friendship and solidarity. Their efforts meant a call for repentance toward the Christian churches. They wanted to free their tradition from the anti-Jewish past by a new beginning. Their enterprise was an act of remembrance and liberation. If we want to go on with their intentions, we have to translate the original idea to the realities of today. The danger is not unthinkable that we remind young people only to the terrible events of the past and we load upon their shoulders the guilt feelings of the older generation. We have to remember for the future. Nes Ammim must try to learn new lessons in this time of the delicate and fragile peace process between Jews and Palestinians, in this time of secularization and religious renaissance, in this time of interreligious dialogue and ethnic fundamentalism.  

Ritual
Communal symbols and rituals are necessary to remember for the future. I would like to mention two wellknown examples in the Dutch situation. The diary of Anne Frank inspires young people to alertness against old and new forms of racism and antisemitism. Her story is a symbol to many. In the hours of darkness this young girl kept faith in the goodness of human beings and spoke of hope for the future. The diary of Anne Frank gives us a very selective insight in the history of the Nazi-occupation but her memory is a blessing for all of us.
Another example: Every year on the 25th of February thousands assemble around the monument of the Dokwerker in the former Jewish quarter of Amsterdam. They commemorate the February revolt of 1941 against the Nazi-deportation of the Jewish population. The memory of this revolt is very selective, because it was only a minority that stood up. Yet this event  
provides a model of identification in different situations of oppression today. The annual commemoration brings together a multi-coloured crowd of people, united in the wish to protest against old and new forms of discrimination and oppression. Communal rituals of commemoration are more necessary than ever in a world where the names of Bosnia, Rwanda and Sudan and of many other countries have confronted us with cruel realities that we hold for impossible after the Second World War. 

Freedom
The challenge of freedom means that we shall not forget the past. Because forgetfulness will lead again to exile. Perhaps we can connect this word of the Baal Shem Tov with the words of another Chasid, with which we started: "Only truth shall make you free". This truth is dynamic. In the same gospel of John there is a curious word: "The Spirit will lead you to the full truth" (16,13). That is a threatening word for all those who are convinced already to possess the full truth. Especially for churches this is a continous temptation - to try to possess the truth. Finding the truth is a lifelong search. To unmask myths and to try to be faithful to the past because of the future. In the good friendship between Holland and Israel  
the Israeli myth on the Dutch people who were all heroic and brave in the Second World War is not helpful. And the Dutch myth on the only idealistic and religious Israeli is not helpful either. There are Christian movements in Holland that try to continue and even revitalize that myth. They like to see Israel as a country full of prophets, only missing one event, the coming of the Christian Messiah.
Nes Ammim want to represent another Christian attitude. This is a not less and specific religious response to the reality of Israel. To live together in solidarity and friendship. To learn together and try to establish a reciprocal encounter and dialogue. Nes Ammim tries to live in the reality of today. That is not the same as in 1948, when the State of israel started. That is also not the same as in 1962 when Nes Ammim started. To share the reality of the lived life in this land, that was the vision of the pioneers. I want to mention some of them, in gratefullness: Johan Pilon, Shlomo Bezek, Heinz Kremers and Dick Lam. Their memory remains a blessing for us today. I hope that Nes Ammim will go on in the future, also after the year 2000. Facing the reality of today, providing a place of dialogue and learning for many, an early warning system against new forms of racism, antisemitism and fundamentalism, a place where the value of religious pluralism can be celebrated. Or in the words of David Hartman: "The experience of diversity in Israel, the presence of the dignified other, be it a Christian, a Muslim, or a Palestinian, brings home to Jewish (and I add: Christian) spiritual consciousness the important and empirical fact that no one person or community exhausts all spiritual possibilities. ...The neighbour who is like oneself gives expression to a love which extends the self and expands one's communal solidarity[8]
This is an expression of the truth that will make us free. So we accept the challenge of freedom.