Echoes of Horror

Regarding Axel Koster’s “What Will I Tell My Son?” (May 7): The guard at the entrance of the former Mauthausen concentration camp near Linz, Austria, asked me for the entrance fee. My children looked at me as I blurted out: “But I was here in 1945.”

We entered the camp without having to pay the fee. We visited the barracks and entered the gas chamber. I explained to my 15-year-old daughter about the grandparents that she never knew, who lost their lives at the age of 44 in a room like the one we were visiting now.

While my children were growing up, I also wanted to share with them the story of my family, my parents, my grandparents uncles, aunts and cousins--all 17 of whom disappeared one day in June, 1942, never to be seen again. But to explain the unexplainable was too painful. So you see, Axel Koster, we both face the same tragedy in a different way.

Samuel Goetz

Los Angeles

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Koster’s goal was to start a painful history lesson for his son through confession and photos and to honor those who died in Nazi concentration camps. Instead, he thrust a hideous and repulsive image in front of us--the image of an infant set up for a very professional photo shoot in front of one of the most horrifying and abominable death chambers known to humankind.

Some elements do not mix. The child--a pawn, really--was far too young to comprehend his father’s motives. If Koster was after the shock value of the juxtaposition, he got it. In a day and age when you think you’ve been hardened to every abomination, Koster achieved a new artistic level of revulsion.

As a non-Jew, I apologize to all Jews for this man’s insensitivity, and I’m disgusted at the exploitation of the child.

Sandra Rochowansky

Reseda

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I don’t think I’ve ever read anything more touching or evocative on your pages. Koster, a son and grandson of Nazis, brings so much of his pain and compassion and such unflinching honesty to his dark personal history that it sheds new light on our own perceptions of what it is to be human, whether as a persecutor or victim.

Koster, by his courageous example, offers hope that perhaps this third generation will finally confront more directly and fully the real meaning of the Holocaust’s legacy.

Josie Levy Martin

Los Angeles

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Koster tells of Jew-hating remarks made at his brother’s wedding reception and wonders whether he’d have kept silent during the war if he’d been alive and present at a similar conversation at that time. I’d say, yes, he would have kept silent. During the Nazi era, the penalty for breaking such silence was severe. In contrast, what penalty did Koster face, a minor social embarrassment?

Whatever his inner feelings, Koster, by his actions, agreed that hateful comments were appropriate to the enjoyment of the celebration. Would we have been brave enough to stand up against the Nazi murderers if now, in our freedom and safety, we do not even voice our dissent when intolerance, insult and hatred are offered as polite conversation?

Alannah Orrison Rosenberg

Long Beach

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I am not interested in judging Koster’s father and grandfather. That’s in the past. How we respond right now to racism and hatred and what impression we make upon our children is what matters for the future. Do we stay silent to preserve the sociability of a luncheon in the face of bigotry, or do we stop it where it should be stopped, answering it with clarity and strength.

I can empathize with Koster’s conflict about honoring his mother’s wishes, but she should honor him as well and not force him to be sick at heart and betray his ideals in front of his son. That is not loyalty, and it is not family values.

It is his son who is important now. If this child sees an example of a father who will not remain fearfully silent, then perhaps it will be easier for Koster and his son to sort out the past.

Audrey Davis Levin

Los Angeles

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That photograph of a small boy romping around that place of horror brought back memories of another toddler, a blond, blue-eyed 2-year-old cousin of mine named Milan. He was murdered at that same place. He was a Jew.

I was appalled that Koster could condemn his father and grandfather, then stand by silently while his kin spewed out the same old filth.

I remember another man, an honorable man, who did speak up. For that, the next day, he was publicly flogged to death.

He was my father.

Marti Bekey

Pasadena

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As a descendant of murdered Nazi victims, I was nevertheless very moved by Koster’s article.

The Torah states that “the sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the sons.” While it is not Koster’s fault that he is descended from Nazis, it is his responsibility to help atone for their sins by doing all he can to teach his son and others where such hate can lead.

I hope that Koster, by writing such an uncompromising and honest article, finds some peace for himself.

Leslie Fuhrer Friedman

Brentwood

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I suggest to Koster that the beginning of the end of bigotry and persecution starts in the home at family get-togethers, just like the celebration given for his aunt. Koster is doing what all “good Germans” did: keeping silent, as so many of us do in the face of prejudice. And so people continue to be murdered.

What a great legacy he could have given his son if he had stopped Keinz’s anti-Semitic remarks right there at the table. Bigotry unchallenged turns buildings into rubble and turns lives into ashes.

Peter Dan Levin

Los Angeles