When I was growing up. my family didn’t much talk about the Holocaust and I have since learned that, at the time, almost nobody did. Out of shame, I think. On the Jewish side, shame that they let the catastrophe – Shoah – happen to them (although, of course, they really didn’t). On the German’s side, shame that they had let themselves become such monsters (although, of course, not all of them were). On everybody’s else’s side, shame that they were passive bystanders (although, of course, in the end, they weren’t). However for much of Michele’s long lost, just found, family – collectively known as The Cousins – the Shoah was the center of their lives.

When I wrote this, in 2013 after a Cousin’s Reunion at Tahoe, “the Shoah was the center of their lives” was more theoretical than felt. But, now, in Germany, in the company of people whose grandparents were deported and murdered solely because they were Jewish, it is shattering to walk into a recently excavated Jewish Temple, and read the dispassionate, explanatory, signs of the constant Jewish persecution – 3 May 1096, Pogrom by Crusaders; February 1195, Pogrom against Jews for unsolved murder of Christian girl; from roughly 1250, increasing financial burdens; 15th Century, decline of the Community as a consequence of repeated expulsions…starting in 1933, the National Socialists, using force and terror, began to exclude the Jews from public life; the synagogue the community had built in 1837 was destroyed in the Pogrom of 1938; And finally, in a combined action of the heads of the NSDAP administration districts of Baden and Saar-Palatinate, the history of the Jewish Community came to an end on October 22/23, 1940 with the deportation of 51 Jewish men, women, and children. Only 15 of the deportees survived the Nazi terror.  

Last night, after our day trip to Speyer to see a truly magnificent Romanesque Cathedral and the aforementioned synagogue, we had dinner in the backyard of the home of Michele’s German Cousins. It was a lovely, warm, night, with children running around, laughing, giggling, while the adults drank wine and French whiskey, talking about the day and the past. Walking to the Cousin’s, just around the corner from their home, I saw my first Stolperstein or “stumbling stone which – which according to Wikipedia, aims to commemorate individuals at exactly the last place of residency—or, sometimes, work—which was freely chosen by the person before he or she fell victim to Nazi terror – and the Holocaust seemed tangible, more relatable, more real, rather than dim history. 

We started our drive to Schifferstadt, Germany,  and The Cousins, on back roads but our trusty Citroën took our request, to stay off of freeways and take the scenic route, a little too seriously and we were directed to one lane rural roads. Before we got to Germany, we switched to the Autoroute which morphed into an identical looking Autobahn with less fanfare than driving from Arkansas to Tennessee. We knew we were getting close to Germany, however, when the exit directions were still in French but the exit locations were all for German towns; sort of like à côté sortie Saarbrücken. Driving on back roads in way more interesting than blasting down a highway, dodging trucks (although it was fun passing a long chain of identical trucks, marked AMG Petronis, which we assumed was the Mercedes F1 Team on their way to The Hockenheimring Grand Prix next weekend). One nice thing about the Autobahn is that there are rest stops although they are not as nice as the Rest Stops in Texas which still leads in The Best Rest Stop category. 

“Boy, those French! They have a different word for everything.” Steve Martin on his first trip to France

I was a little intimidated about France before we got here, I was afraid that my clothes weren’t dressy enough – and that will probably be the case in Paris, although I did bring a blue blazer – but, in Metz, my clothes fit right in (which makes my complete lack of French even more troublesome). Metz has a long history, more than 3,000 years – I read – and it was a regional center even before it was conquered by Julius Caesar in 52 BC. The center is free of cars so it is a great place to hang out and have a leisurely lunch. Strangely enough, the oldest parts of the city are not car free nor is the area next to the Cathedral which is the local big draw. The stained glass windows, especially a modern set done by Marc Chagall, get the most attention but I was drawn to the modern art that is spread around the interior of the building.  Across a busy street from the Cathedral is a food market comprised of small vendors where the food is displayed like works of art. The Metz area is known for its cheese and charcuterie; their displays were huge – the cheese case, below, is about 1/4 of what was available – but so were the seafood displays. The produce, while it looked good, was nowhere near as varied as our local Farmer’s Market.    So far everywhere we have eaten has been great, but not noticeably better than the Bay Area. The may be because we have not been to Paris, yet, and we have not eaten at any two or three-star restaurants, but I think it is also because the Bay Area is a world-class food area. On the other hand, the old buildings and public art beat the Bay Area, hands down. The old buildings were not a surprise but the public art is.  Speaking of public art, on the way out of town, we stopped at the Centre Pompidou-Metz. I was not knocked out by the architecture which, of course, was designed by an out of town architect, in this case, ‎Shigeru Ban, a Japanese architect. Inside, however, was a suburb show on early twentieth-century artist couples who influenced each other, such as Ray and Charles Eames, and Georgia O’Keefe and Alfred Stieglitz. Then it is on to Germany and The Cousins. 

We flew to into Paris via Charles-de-Gaulle Airport, rented a car and drove to Meaux, for the night, on the way to Germany and the cousins (saving the actual Paris for dessert). My first jetlagged impression, shock really, is that there are so many black people here – African-French? – way more than anywhere in the Bay Area, including Oakland. I think part of it, all of it, maybe, is that Meaux is an outer suburb of Paris and I remember reading, somewhere, sometime ago, that the outer suburbs of Paris are where a majority of immigrants live but, so far, not many women wearing Hajibs.