Germany and National Socialism

Three-quarters of a century have passed since the Nazi period in Germany and witnesses who lived through those terrifying times and who are able to talk about their experiences are becoming increasingly rare. Nevertheless Torkel S. Wächter from Sweden has discovered a new variation on the theme of private memory culture. In order to prevent the fate of his ancestors from being completely forgotten, this son of German-born Jewish refugees has availed himself of the medium of the web – and of 32 yellowed postcards.

His website, which goes by the name 32postkarten.com, is so old-fashioned in its design to the extent that it is contemporary, yet it still takes the visitor on a journey into the past. Surrounded by black and white photographs from a family album with people from various generations, dressed in the chic styles of the German Empire and the Weimar Republic, the first thing that catches one’s eye is a copy of a yellowed, hand-written postcard. The red postal stamp with the imperial German eagle and a swastika make it quite clear – it was posted in Nazi Germany during the Second World War.

An extraordinary project

The website is still not complete. In the not too distant future however the visitor will be able to read 32 other postcards just like this one, all of them written in Hamburg and posted to Sweden in 1940/41 – the last ones just before the holocaust. Torkel Wächter put the first postcard online on 29th March 2010, exactly 70 years to the day it was written. The remaining cards are to follow step by step in simulated real time, each one on the date it was posted. There is further information on the people involved, comment windows supply background information and personal evaluations of the written content.

“History becomes tangible when people are moved. The history of the Wächter family from Hamburg is moving, because it makes a parallel journey through time tangible,” one of the visitors wrote in the guest book at the site’s premiere. “We are eagerly awaiting the next postcard, in our mind’s eye we can see the writers of the cards, we ask ourselves what might they have possibly left unsaid. European-Jewish history in the smallest format, tailor-made for the 21st century – an extraordinary project, indeed!”

Witnesses to a painful past

It all started like a detective thriller – Torkel found some battered, old cardboard boxes in the attic of his parents’ home in Stockholm. That was ten years ago. It took a while for him to realise that the “Walter” referred to as the addressee and owner of all the diaries, essay collections, documents and letters - above all the 32 postcards – was in fact his very own deceased father. Could he have possibly renounced his old Germanic name and called himself Michaël in order to start a new life in Sweden – as an expression maybe of a break with his past or as a sign of rebirth. What however caused the long-unsuspecting son more grief was the certainty that all the members of his father’s family had either fallen victim to the holocaust or had been scattered to the four winds – in particular since the father had kept his past so secret for such a long time.

The Wächters were a German-Jewish family who had lived in Hamburg for centuries. The name dates back to the early 19th century and was traced to a certain Tobias Elias who, as a member of the Jewish funeral parlour, Chevra Kadisha, “watched over” the dead. The 48-year-old Torkel Wächter does not merely pour out the findings of his meticulous researching and genealogical investigations, he is also a novelist who among other things has studied at the Padeia, the European Institute for Jewish Studies in Stockholm. Since 2006 he has had German nationality.

Snatched from the jaws of death

Of course it was finding the box in the attic that first triggered his curiosity about family history and the past. Wächter did everything in his power to cast some light on his hushed up family history. The key to doing this was to be the family’s collection of correspondence. As he was not capable himself of deciphering the old handwriting, he availed himself of the services of an agency in Hamburg that was able to transcribe the old German script used at that time known as “Sütterlin”. Suddenly everything seemed to fall into place like a jigsaw puzzle. The central figure, Walter Wächter, born in Hamburg on 26th May 1913, athletic, keen on the arts - particularly fond of German literature and painting - was firmly entrenched in his Jewish faith and politically active in the social-democratic party. It was this that proved to be his ultimate undoing.

After Hitler’s seizure of power the up-and-coming, young graduate with his Abitur (university entrance qualification) was not allowed to study at university, he could not find a job and ended up in Fuhlsbüttel concentration camp on 4th March 1935, charged with “acts preparatory to high treason”. He was imprisoned in the camp for three years where he had all his teeth knocked out. Snatched from the veritable jaws of death, he was forced to flee Germany immediately after his release. As an illegal migrant he wandered around half of Europe until November 1938 when he landed in Sweden, where he muddled through working as a farmhand and day labourer. He attended a Hechaluz Collective to prepare for a life working on a kibbutz, where he met his wife, Erna Schwartz. When their hopes of emigrating to Palestine were dashed, they decided to remain in their place of forced exile and start a new life there. He never saw his parents, brothers and sisters and relatives ever again.

Personal enrichment

Torkel Wächter views his work on his own personal memory cult project as a form of personal enrichment. “When my older brother was born in 1949, my father swore quite solemnly that his child would never have to hear a single word of German. Over the last ten years I have been poring over my father’s estate, I have learnt German, spent time delving into various archives and met people who told me all the things I never dared to ask about. I made new friends and got to know relatives I never knew existed.”