A Ceremony for Jews Who Fought for Germany in WWI
FRANKFURT — German soldiers, including one wearing a skullcap with his uniform, filed silently through a leaf-covered cemetery in Frankfurt on Sunday to lay wreaths at a memorial for 467 Jewish soldiers killed fighting for the kaiser during World War I.
The memorial, the first public service at the site for as long as anyone can remember, was organized by the Association of Jewish Soldiers, a small but growing group in the German military whose existence testifies to the feeling by at least some Jews that it is possible for them to be patriots again in the nation that once tried to wipe them out.
“More and more young Jews are placing their trust in the Bundeswehr,” Gideon Römer-Hillebrecht, a general staff officer in the German Defense Ministry and deputy chairman of the Jewish soldiers association, told representatives of several national armies and numerous dignitaries at the memorial ceremony....
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The memorial, the first public service at the site for as long as anyone can remember, was organized by the Association of Jewish Soldiers, a small but growing group in the German military whose existence testifies to the feeling by at least some Jews that it is possible for them to be patriots again in the nation that once tried to wipe them out.
“More and more young Jews are placing their trust in the Bundeswehr,” Gideon Römer-Hillebrecht, a general staff officer in the German Defense Ministry and deputy chairman of the Jewish soldiers association, told representatives of several national armies and numerous dignitaries at the memorial ceremony....