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Jewish World: Grave Dispute
Markus Krah Berlin
A seemingly petty squabble over the inscription on author Stefan Heym�s tombstone reflects a deep identity crisis within German Jewry
Stefan Heym Was at the center of controversy all his life: as a Jew in Nazi Germany, as a socialist in the 1950s U.S., as a non-conformist author in the East German dictatorship, and again as a socialist in unified Germany. And even after his death during a visit to Israel in December 2001, he continues to stir controversy -- literally from the grave.
For months his widow, Inge Heym, and the Berlin Jewish community have been struggling over the question of whether the famous writer�s tombstone has to be inscribed with traditional Jewish symbols. The object of the clash is a 1.60 meter (5ft. 3 in.) column of Jerusalem stone, weighing some 600 kg (1,300 pounds), sitting in a stonemason�s warehouse in Berlin -- instead of on Heym�s grave in the Jewish cemetery in the Weissensee district. Inge, 69, had the stonemason engrave it according to her late husband�s last testament. He had
asked to be interred in Weissensee, where his parents are buried, and specified, she says, that his tombstone "shall bear my name and the dates of my life and death." If he had wanted other things, "he would have mentioned them," she told The Report.
But shortly before the stone-setting ceremony, scheduled for December 16, the first anniversary of the author�s death, a Jewish community official told Inge that the stone did not meet the specifications of a 1999 regulation requiring that tombstones must bear the Star of David, flanked by the Hebrew letters pey nun (for "poh nitman" or "poh nikbar," or "here rests") and the five-letter Hebrew acronym, taf nun tzadi bet heh, for "May his soul be bound in the bond of life."
She refused to comply with the rule, and canceled the ceremony. In a mid-January meeting with community head Alexander Brenner, 72, she rejected a compromise offer, to place only a Star of David on the back of the stone. "I�m not opposed to the Jewish symbols at all, but one has to accept my husband�s last will," says Inge, who is not Jewish.
A winner of the Jerusalem Prize who was never a member of the Berlin community, Stefan Heym professed his Jewishness throughout his turbulent life. Born in 1913 in the East German city of Chemnitz, he fled to the U.S. in 1935 from the Nazis, who murdered several of his relatives. He returned to Germany in 1945 as a U.S. Army officer, but was soon ordered back and discharged over accusations of "pro-Communist" positions. In 1952, protesting McCarthyism and the Korean War, Heym left the U.S. to settle in East Berlin. Until his death he remained a difficult-to-handle critic of East, and later unified, Germany in political comments and his literary work, which often dealt with Jewish issues ("The King David Report," "The Wandering Jew").
His widow "has a case," says Michael Brocke, Jewish studies professor at the University of Duisburg, an expert on cemeteries. "The [1999] regulation is much stricter than previous ones," which had left the design of the stones to the individual. The new one aims to maintain a Jewish character, both by requiring certain symbols and forbidding others. But few of the tombstones in the cemetery, founded in 1880, conform to the rule. They range from simple Orthodox graves to splendid monuments (without any Jewish symbols) erected by assimilated, class-conscious bourgeois families.
The Weissensee�s diversity, Brocke says, proves that the Berlin community cannot claim to be guarding an unbroken tradition. (That very diversity has made the 100-acre Weissensee, Europe's largest extant Jewish cemetery, a cultural attraction. Unlike most other Jewish graveyards, it was not destroyed by the Nazis, but the metal works of grave sites were disassembled and it was hit by bombs. Neglected under Socialist rule in East Germany, it is now being restored.)
"We don�t claim to be preserving tradition or religious values," counters Brenner, pointing to the more pragmatic need for rules that assure the cemetery has a Jewish character. "This is an unnecessary conflict, which plays into the hands of our opponents," he told The Report, pointing to anti-Semitic letters, accusing the community of acting "typically Jewish" in the Heym case, received after the Berlin media reported the dispute. "I wish Mrs. Heym would show some goodwill."
Brocke and other see larger developments behind what might otherwise be regarded as a local squabble between an eccentric widow and an authoritarian community. "We are in a state of transition," says Irene Runge, head of the secular Berlin Jewish Cultural Association, pointing to the growth of the Jewish community in Germany since 1990 from 30,000 to almost 100,000 members, largely due to an influx from the former Soviet Union.
The background of the immigrants -- mostly alienated from Judaism and unburdened by German-Jewish history -- is very different from that of the established community, and absorbing these newcomers has challenged its organizational, emotional and financial resources. Tensions rise from the sometimes questionable halakhic status of the immigrants, from language problems, and, sometimes, arguments over the design of tombstones. "The immigrants are used to excessive decorations and ornaments, pictures of the deceased, and all sorts of frills," says Brocke.
Brocke tries to put the question into a larger perspective. "The leadership is concerned about the identity of the Jewish community here,"
he says. More than 50 years after Holocaust survivors from ravaged Eastern Europe came to Germany as refugees and built moderately Orthodox communities, their offspring and the newcomers have introduced pluralism. Conservative and Liberal communities have sprung up in the last decade -- restoring some of German Jewry�s proud liberal tradition, cut off with the Holocaust.
Facing this trend, the establishment clings to its legally sanctioned monopolies in Jewish life, from religious education and political representation to the administration of the cemeteries. "If there were recognized Conservative or Liberal communities with cemeteries, there wouldn�t be any problem with Heym's tombstone," says Runge. She adds that a
new generation of Jews -- German-born and immigrant -- is growing into leadership positions. "A generation from now," she believes, "some of the challenges will have been met. Maybe then we�ll have new rules for the cemetery."
For now, though, Heym�s grave, marked by a small green plastic plaque, is cordoned off with the kind of red-and-white tape used in road works. Its future is unresolved, like the identity of Germany�s Jewish community.
February 10, 2003
Jewish World
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