ATTENTION - The German thing...

[JeffSchan <JeffSchan...>]

As both a musician who has performed in Germany and a child of survivors, I
find Alex's questions interesting, although certainly coming from a
particular point of view.  My parents raised me to hate Nazism and fascism,
which they always made sure I understood was very different from hating the
Germans as a nation as a whole.  So whereas there is for me a certain
personal uneasiness when I have been in Germany,  I don't see that Jews
should boycott Germany.  That's not the way I was raised and that's not what
I believe now.  There are many of both the older and younger generation who
fought Nazism (I discovered this in my research on Buchenwald, which was
liberated by the prisoners themselves, including many German political
prisoners) and who continue to fight fascism today.

Of course I don't believe that Jews should go there as if nothing happened.
 The times I have performed in Germany were mainly with my wife in an improv
context.  There has been a deafening silent response by the Germans to my
more recent pieces which are directly related to the Holocaust.  A question I
have asked myself recently is what is behind this sudden German infatuation
with klezmer music, and why hasn't this infatuation extended to other forms
of Jewish music.  I am sure, as Alex implies, that some of this is the
Germans playing out their own guilt.  On the other hand, I also think there
is something going on that is analogous to black musicians being accepted in
a deeply racist country like the US.  Part of it is progressive and part of
it is a condescending acceptance of an oppressed minority as "entertainers."

As for reasons for going to Germany, I certainly don't begrudge anyone the
opportunity to make money, as long as they don't have to sell their
principles in order to do it.  As for helping the Germans to alleviate their
guilt, I don't feel that musicians have that much control over how their
music is used.  It's usually in the hands of forces much greater than we
possess.  So I don't have a problem with people who go to Germany to help
propogate a culture which Hitler pretty much wiped out, just as long as they
do so with their eyes open.

Jeffrey Schanzer