12/05/19 -10 days until draft
10:30 am local time Munich International Airport
This right now is my first time ever in Germany. Somewhat ironically, I started and finished Elie Weisel’s Night on my flight here from Boston. This was my second time reading it. I finished with weary and red eyes and reflected on his life.
Elie grew up in Sighet, a small town with a strong Jewish community in Transylvania. Elie was raised in a religious household with a father, mother and two sisters. He was a devout Jew from a young age and in adolescence dedicated himself to study Jewish mysticism (kabala).
Elie’s experience in the holocaust bore witness to pure evil. In his preface, he articulates how Night, like all his works, can only ever be an attempt to portray the happenings in places like Auschwitz or Birkenau. He talks about the vocabulary not existing to properly encapsulate the horrors he and the Jews of Europe faced.
Mr. Weisel’s story is a powerful one and today widespread and well read. As time ticks, survivors become fewer and fewer in numbers and landmarks like the gates of Auschwitz erode and decay. These stories need to be told and understood so they can be intertwined in human memory, as to prevent them from unfolding again.
As I boarded my flight in Boston, the German Lufthansa flight attendant observes my name from my ticket. Knopf. “Oh, going home?” she asks, strangely in English. “yes,” I nod, but not to where she was thinking.
It has been a long time since the Knopf’s were in Germany. For generations this was our home, until it wasn’t. Until we were forced out and turned into refugees and martyrs.
As I boarded that flight, I put away my American passport with my German last name, I wouldn’t be needing it anymore anytime soon. I take out my Israeli passport, with my new name: נוף meaning view.
I now sit in the Munich airport, waiting to go home. A sensation relatable to all Jew’s since our first exile. There is a thick fog outside. Planes come into land from what seems like the heavens and they take off into the unknown abyss. This experience is surreal. I think about the Knopf’s before me who had a life here, until they didn’t.
I live for them, and for all those who were not given a chance. I chose to live in Israel as to live to my upmost potential, my freest self.
I have never been to Germany before, this is my first time. But my timing is off. I’ll come back one day, Ill go to Poland too. But ill be in uniform, with an Israeli flag draped around my neck. I am on my way home to Israel, the view is better there.
Thanks for reading,
דויד נוף
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