Gail Breslow - An Outing In Germany

 

Thank you. So, it's 1964, and I'm nine years old. You can do the math if you'd like. My family has decided to move to Munich, Germany, for a year. They decide since I'm only nine years old, I might as well go to the local Volksschule. I hardly speak any German, but I'll figure it out as I go along and it doesn't really matter, because I'm nine years old. It's fourth grade. 

 

So, on the way to school the first day, my mother's walking me over there and she says as casually as she can, “You know, you might not want to let anybody know that you're Jewish.” And I nod my head. I was only nine years old, but I knew about the Nazis. Every year in Hebrew school, Mrs. Preston, who had survived the Holocaust, would come in and talk with us around Yom Kippur about what had happened to her and her family. So, I understood. So, I just nodded, off we went to school. 

 

So, we get there and I'm taken to my class, all the other fourth graders, and I'm ushered up to the front of the room to the teacher's desk. And her name is Frau Zwecksteiger. She's on this big platform. Her desk is on this big platform, like the stage is. She calls me up onto the big platform and she pulls out this form to start filling out. And first question, she goes, “Naama?” All the other kids are just sitting there, I can feel their eyes on my back behind me, like, “Naama.”

 

I don't speak much German, but I get that one. So, I'm like, “Gail Breslow.” I give her my name. She writes it down. Next question “Tresa?” I'm like, “Okay, I got that one too. I'm feeling pretty good.” So, I give her my address. She writes it down. Next question, “Religion?” I'm like, “I cannot believe this.” I just shrug my shoulders. She says, “Religion in this louder voice.” Like, if she says it louder, I'll understand what she means. Again, I shrugged my shoulders like, “I don't know that one.” She doesn't speak English, but she tries. She's like, “What is religion?” [audience laughter] And I'm frozen. I hear some kid behind me snicker like, “Boy, she's dumb.” 

 

I think, what am I supposed to do? My mother's told me, “Don't tell them your religion here. It is I've been here five minutes. She's asking me to pronounce this in front of the whole class. And I think I could lie. I think about all I've heard in Hebrew school, about all those people who died instead of renouncing their religion, I'm like, “I can't do it.” Plus, what would I say? I mean, “What am I?” So, I go, “Jewish.” And she goes, “Wir beten?” I mean, I had said it as softly as I could, so I said a little louder still, in English, “Jewish.” She gets up out of her seat a little bit and frowns and goes, “Judah?” I'm like-- She goes, “Judah?

 

And now, she's bellowing at the top of her lung, “Du bist, Judah.” I feel like out in the hall, they can hear. I hear some kid behind me gasp. I mean, Munich, Germany, 1964. These kids have probably never met anybody Jewish. And here I am, first day of school, and I square my shoulders and “I go, “Ja, ich bin Jude.” And she writes it down. Nothing happens. [audience laughter] It turns out she wanted to know, because there were two religious class in the school. There was the Catholics and the Protestant, and she had to figure out which one to put me in. [audience laughter] 

 

So, I learned a lot about Catholicism that year. [audience laughter] But you know what? After that, I decided, I wasn't ever going to try to pass for anything that I wasn't. Because sometimes you just have to square your shoulders and say, “Ja, ich bin Jude.” Thank you very much.