SPIEGEL: Mr. Rotfeld, Hitler's Germany capitulated 60 years ago... ## материал.

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Specter of Populism” – an interview for “Spiegel Special” nr 4/2005 (English version)



SPIEGEL: Mr. Rotfeld, Hitler's Germany capitulated 60 years ago. During the war German soldiers committed unspeakable crimes on Polish soil. Fifty years on, after the collapse of the Eastern Bloc, Germany became the most vocal advocate of Polish EU membership. What are relations between the two countries like today?

Rotfeld: Although we are both part of the EU today, German-Polish relations are still defined by the traumas of the past. People often say that the relationship between the Germans and French could serve as a model for us. But I don't imagine that being possible in the near future. The German-Polish legacy weighs far more heavily. Germany lost a considerable chunk of its territory to Poland. There are still people who think of Szczecin, Wroclaw, Jelenia Gora and Zielona Gora as German cities.

SPIEGEL: But the generation of displaced Germans is slowly dying out.

Rotfeld: There's another important - psychological - difference. The Germans have an inferiority complex with regard to the French; toward the Poles they have the opposite. Fortunately for us, though, Germany has long been governed by well-intentioned people. The German elite displays considerable understanding for, and a great sensitivity toward, Poland.

SPIEGEL: That's true above all at the political level of international statesmen. Elsewhere great uncertainty still prevails.

Rotfeld: That's right. The process of reconciliation is similar to riding a bicycle. You have to keep on pedaling; otherwise you end up stopping and probably tipping over. For us, Erika Steinbach's activities are the source of greatest annoyance.

SPIEGEL: The chairwoman of the Federation of Displaced Germans wants to erect a memorial center dedicated to these refugees.

Rotfeld: Of all places, right in the heart of Berlin, adjacent to the Holocaust memorial. Nobody in Poland thinks that's acceptable. We're absolutely unanimous on this issue. Right-wing Catholic nationalists aren't alone in their anger. They're joined by people like my predecessor, Vladislav Bartoszevski, who worked very hard to further German-Polish reconciliation.

SPIEGEL: But surely, Ms. Steinbach and the expellees' organizations are mere fringe groups in Germany, and they certainly shouldn't be undermining relations with Poland. The majority of Germans don't want to know about them.

Rotfeld: I'm not afraid of Erika Steinbach either. But she is just using the issue to gain political leverage. Without it, she wouldn't figure on the German political scene at all. But her slogans are still dangerous. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote in the Communist Manifesto: "A specter is haunting Europe." In those days it was communism, today it is populism. That represents a grave danger for us all.

SPIEGEL: Even in Poland?

Rotfeld: Most certainly. People like the farmers' leader Andrzej Lepper and rightwing hardliners are managing to impose their language and agendas. Their anti-German sentiment falls on fertile ground; many people fear they could lose their identity as a result of European integration.

SPIEGEL: During the past couple of years, the Germans have placed a growing emphasis on the hardships they suffered during World War II, becoming victims of displacement and of the air raids, for example. Does that bother you?

Rotfeld: In my view, the Germans have every right to speak out about their own suffering. This is necessary, both historically and psychologically. But they mustn't confuse the causes with the consequences. We can't allow ourselves to distort history. Hitler wasn't imposed on the Germans; he was elected. The worst that could happen would be if a center for displaced Germans within sight of the Holocaust memorial were to undercut Germans' consciousness of their own guilt. We Poles fear that the Germans will soon start seeing World War II as a war in which two groups, above all, suffered: the Jews and the Germans.

SPIEGEL: Recently, right-wing radicals have been making their voices heard in Germany. Anti-Semitic tendencies can also be observed. German nationalists have won seats in Saxony's state parliament. Does that make you particularly bitter?

Rotfeld: There's no doubt we are seeing a new anti-Semitism, which is finding expression in an extremely critical stance toward Israel. Anti-Semitism consists of believing that the Jews rule the world. Anti-Semites believe that Jews dominate Wall Street, mass media and Hollywood. Or, that they have been behind revolutions, from the one in France through to Bolshevism. Evidently people need somebody to hate. Anti-Semitism can't be combated with public campaigns. That's a question of education and religion. Anti-Semitism often occurs where religion has ceased to be important.

SPIEGEL: But there are Catholic anti-Semites in Poland. They claim the Jews killed Jesus.

Rotfeld: Of course, that kind of thing existed and still exists. But religion as a rule appeals to the good in human beings. From a religious standpoint, even the Nazis are fallen angels. That's why religion helps counter evil, that is, anti-Semitism. It creates certain taboos that form cornerstones of our cultures. The Catholic Church is fighting anti-Semitism in Poland today.

SPIEGEL:You're actually a member of two separate groups of victims. The Nazis murdered your family because they were of Jewish descent. You yourself were expelled from your home near the city of Lviv in the Ukraine.

Rotfeld: I survived that war; I was very fortunate. And today I see my relocation to Poland as a stroke of luck. Many of my compatriots from those old Polish territories in the East - which now form part of the Ukraine - take a similar view. After all, they escaped having to live in the Soviet Union. That way of thinking would probably surprise most displaced Germans. But you can look at things this way too: those Germans who were resettled in West Germany would have had a much harder time had they stayed in the People's Republic of Poland.

SPIEGEL: Your parents were highly educated and even spoke German at home. Can you remember that?

Rotfeld: I do know that they wrote each other letters in German. My sister, who was 11 years older than me, later found that much out. After the war she went back to our house once. Ukrainian nationals were living there by then. She asked for some kind of a memento and was given a photo album. Inside it she found letters from my parents to friends and relatives, and the letters were in German.

SPIEGEL: This affinity for the Germans proved your parents' undoing.

Rotfeld: Years after the war I was on vacation and got into a conversation with a man on the beach. It turned out that he knew my father. His father ran the post office in Przemyslany, where we lived. As the Wehrmacht advanced in 1941, the people from our area fled eastwards. The postman suggested that my father do the same. But he declined: "You see, I know the Germans," he is supposed to have replied. "They're a people with a very high level of civilization - unlike the Bolsheviks, who are barbarians." And he stayed put. Had my parents fled, they might have survived. My father - so I was told - always rejected the Bolsheviks and the Nazis, but not the Germans or the Russians as a whole. He was right in that respect.

SPIEGEL: You survived World War II hidden in a monastery. What can you remember about that?

Rotfeld: It was late autumn, probably around the beginning of December 1941. The directors of the Greek Catholic Studite Order, which my father had represented as a lawyer before the war, suggested taking the school-age boys in our family to the monastery in Uniov, where they would be safe. Uniov is a village in the Carpathian foothills, a beautiful place just a few miles from Przemyslany - now the Ukrainian town of Peremyshlyany - where I was born. A monk was visiting us at the time. As he was about to leave, he turned back and - standing in the doorway - asked my father, "Doctor, might you perhaps consider placing your young son in our care?" I was three-and-a-half years old at the time. Suddenly the whole family started rushing to dress me, and kissing and embracing me. They took me into the courtyard where a horse and carriage were waiting. That was the last time I saw my parents.

SPIEGEL: You remained safe in the monastery until the Red Army came and drove the Nazis out again.

Rotfeld: The regional director, Andrzej Szeptycki, had decided that all the monasteries in his charge should take in and hide Jewish children. As a result, nearly 150 boys and girls survived. This Szeptycki wrote a letter to the head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, in 1942, asking him to put an end to the killing. Of course, that was naïve. We were lucky the Nazis didn't shut the monastery down there and then.

SPIEGEL: Of your whole family, only you and your sister survived.

Rotfeld: The Nazis had created a ghetto in our city, where they put more and more Jews from the entire region. From there they were transported to the extermination camp in Belzec near Lublin. My father had a premonition of what lay ahead and fled into the forest with the whole family. The Rotfelds were very well known in the area those days. Lots of our relatives worked at the university in Lemberg; an uncle of mine was a member of parliament in the Polish Seym. A school principal suggested that my parents hide in his barn. Somebody saw him bringing them food and betrayed him to the Ukrainian police, who were collaborating with the German occupying forces. My parents were arrested and murdered. My sister was the only one who stayed in the forest, surviving until the Red Army came. That took three years.

SPIEGEL: All on her own?

Rotfeld: She was 14 when she left, and dressed only in a nightgown. A few other people were with her. My sister stayed on in our town after the war and worked in an alcohol factory. Later on, she studied chemistry at a technical college.

SPIEGEL: What did you know about yourself in those days? Did you know your real name?

Rotfeld: No. In the monastery they addressed me as Czervínski. A prison guard called on my sister in 1944 - the Nazis had just been driven out. He had seen my parents before they were executed; he had known them from before the war. This guard told my father, "Write a letter and I will deliver it." And that's exactly what he did. In it my father revealed - in encrypted form - where I was.

SPIEGEL: And did your sister come and get you?

Rotfeld: My sister had other worries. She visited me once and told me my real name. But I stayed in the monastery until the Soviets closed it in 1946.

SPIEGEL: What happened to you then? You were only nine years old.

Rotfeld: We children were put in a home in Zloczov. I didn't like it there, so I convinced two friends to abscond with me. Each of us packed two pairs of felt slippers and set out for the monastery. We covered some 40 miles in the midst of winter. When we arrived, the monks were still there, but they were wearing street clothes for their daily routines rather than their cassocks. They welcomed us with open arms.

SPIEGEL: You remained then until the Soviets closed the monastery for good.

Rotfeld: In 1951 I entered a home in Cracow as part of a repatriation program for Polish children. I invited my sister to come to Poland too in 1955. She had a daughter, but her marriage had broken down. She finally received permission to leave the Ukraine in 1959. She died soon afterward. The three years in the woods had taken their toll. I was 21 then, studying at Jagiellonen University, and suddenly I had to look after her young daughter. Later she wanted to learn how to be a wood-carver and I took her to a famous artist in Zakopane. My niece emigrated to Sweden 10 years later.

SPIEGEL: You come from an upper-class Polish family. The war made you an orphan. You could no longer remember anything about your background. Yet you managed to reestablish yourself in the same social class. How do you explain that?

Rotfeld: I believe my positive outlook on life has helped. Most people only remember the bad things that happened to them. My experience, though, is that you can trigger positive responses from others if you approach things positively yourself. I have also experienced plenty of good things from Germans. For example, the German scientist Walther Stuetzle got me a job at Sipri, the famous peace studies institute, in Stockholm during 1989. Later on I was appointed his successor.

SPIEGEL: Do you know what became of the other children in the home in Cracow, the ones you shared your early years with?

Rotfeld: Many of them came from situations like mine. And quite a number managed to complete apprenticeships or degrees. Many have emigrated and occupy important posts in different parts of the world. I have often asked myself how that is possible. Scientists have been arguing for decades over what influences people's development most - genetic characteristics or the social environment. It seems to me that genes are more important.

SPIEGEL: You come from a Jewish family. You were then raised by monks as a Christian. Is there anything left from your Jewish past?

Rotfeld: To be honest, no. As a 3-year-old child I was not aware of being Jewish. I knew that we were persecuted but assumed that was simply the way life was. In those days, I wanted to identify with the monastery and its religion. Last year I was even invited to attend the consecration of a church. I held a speech in Ukrainian.

SPIEGEL: You have devoted much of your career to the relationship between Germany and Poland. In your opinion, which postwar event was more significant - Chancellor Willy Brandt's going down on his knees in Warsaw in 1970, or the spectacular message of reconciliation sent by Poland's bishops to the Germans in 1965, entitled "We forgive and ask for forgiveness"?

Rotfeld: In the beginning was the word. That was a very important matter. The bishops showed great courage. Their action wasn't at all popular with their own people.

SPIEGEL: You were actually present when Brandt fell to his knees. In Germany, people viewed the chancellor's gesture as a major event and an important step toward reconciliation.

Rotfeld: I also saw it as a very serious matter. However, the Polish propaganda played the incident down. And the Polish people didn't entirely grasp the meaning of the gesture either. After all, Brandt's tribute was paid at the memorial to the 1943 uprising in the Jewish ghetto, not at the memorial to the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, during which more people died than in Hiroshima. The Poles are very sensitive there. Unfortunately, many visitors from western states - including Germans - confuse the two uprisings in speeches and interviews.

SPIEGEL: As a young man you wasted no time learning the language of your former enemies. Today you speak fluent German. In view of your biography, that's very unusual, isn't it?

Rotfeld: I wanted to find out what had happened to the German people during the Nazi era. How things could have gone so badly wrong.

SPIEGEL: And have you found the explanation?

Rotfeld: No. I've searched for decades, without getting much closer to an answer. And now I have finally understood why. It is very important to realize that every nation is capable of committing the most abominable of crimes and equally of doing the most wonderful of deeds. Crimes aren't the result of the nationalities of the perpetrators, but rather of the political system in which they are committed. The Poles, for example, have also had terrible experiences with the Ukrainians. While the Germans practiced industrialized murder, the Ukrainian nationalists killed with their hands. But I owe my survival to the Ukrainians. At the same time, it was the Ukrainian police that arrested my parents and turned them over to the Nazis. There's no truth in suggesting that one nation has a monopoly on atrocities and another on benevolence.

SPIEGEL: Mr. Rotfeld, we thank you for this interview.