Berlin Zoo comes to terms with Nazi past, seeks
out former Jewish shareholders
During World War II, the Berlin Zoo was one of
the first establishments to push out Jewish patrons – even before the Nazi regime had asked
institutions to do so. More than 70 years later, the zoo is trying to own up to
its misdeeds.
In 1938, the Berlin Zoo got rid of Jewish board
members and forced Jewish shareholders to sell their stock at a loss, before
re-selling the stock in an effort to "Aryanize" the institution. The
zoo has now commissioned a historian to identify these past shareholders and
track down their descendants, according to a report by AFP.
"Jews were very important for the zoo,"
the historian, Monika Schmidt, told AFP. "But they were pushed out step by
step by the zoo itself, before the Nazi state asked any institution to do those
things."
According to the report, roughly a quarter of the
zoo's 4,000 shareholders in the '30s were Jews.
At the time, the Berlin Zoo was something of a
social hotspot; instead of receiving dividends, the shareholders and their
families enjoyed free access to the zoo, as well as the prestige of supporting
an important institution.
"…in former times, the zoo was a very
important meeting place for the city," said Schmidt, who works for the
Center for Research on Anti-Semitism in Berlin.
Schmidt has managed to locate Jochanan Asriel,
89, whose grandfather was a shareholder. As a boy, Asriel would ride his bike
to the zoo every afternoon.
"I remember all the animals, and I remember
where they were placed," Asriel told AFP. "I don't remember what I
ate yesterday, but what I remember from the zoo, I remember very well."
Asriel, who fled Germany as a teenager in 1939,
now lives in the northern Israeli city of Haifa.
According to the report, Schmidt plans to publish
the names and biographies of the shareholders in a book next year.
The zoo's dark past came to light in 2000, when
retired New York sociology professor Werner Cohn asked the institution about
his father's shares.
The zoo initially responded by saying that there
was "neither force, nor compulsion" in the transfer of shares from
Jews to non-Jews, but later decided to commission Schmidt to begin her
research.
She then exposed the stock sales, the zoo's
removal of Jewish board members, and the barring of Jewish visitors from the
institution starting in 1939.
According to AFP, the zoo installed a plaque
commemorating the Jewish shareholders.
"It is important to make the decision to
continue to engage with this topic, to not forget what is possible," said
zoo spokeswoman Claudia Bienek.
According to Bienek, reparation payments are not
being considered.
Vienna Philharmonic Strips Ex-Nazis of Honors
VIENNA
December 20, 2013 (AP)
By
GEORGE JAHN Associated Press
The famed Vienna Philharmonic orchestra
has quietly stripped six former senior Nazi officials of honors awarded them —
a late act of contrition for its embrace of the Hitler era that included
purging Jewish members from its ranks.
The decision was divulged to The
Associated Press by an orchestra member on Friday and confirmed by historian
Oliver Rathkolb.
Rathkolb led research earlier this year
documenting the orchestra's close cooperation with Nazi propaganda minister
Joseph Goebbels and other top Hitler associates after Germany's 1938 annexation
of Austria.
The formal vote to revoke the awards was
held at the orchestra's annual meeting on Oct. 23 but the move was not announced.
Rathkolb said all ensemble members agreed then to strip the officials from
golden rings of honor and medals.
Those losing the honors included Arthur
Seyss-Inquart, a top Hitler associate sentenced to death for war crimes and
crimes against humanity and Vienna governor Baldur von Schirach, who drew a
20-year prison sentence at the Nuremberg trials for his leading role in the
deportation of tens of thousands of Jews.
The others stripped of the honors were
senior SS official Albert Reitter; Friedrich Rainer, governor of Salzburg and
Carinthia provinces; Rudolf Toepfer, a ranking Hitler-era railway official; and
Vienna Mayor Hanns Blaschke.
Under the Nazis, 13 musicians with Jewish
roots or kin were fired by the orchestra and five died in concentration camps.
By the end of World War II, about half of the Philharmonic's members had joined
the Nazi party.
