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[quote=Anonymous]I've lived in a number of western, central, and eastern European countries. I don't judge any Jewish person for having antagonistic feelings toward Germany/Germans even today.  But I can say that Germans by far and away have done more "soul searching" and work to come to terms with their sordid past than any other countries complicit in the Holocaust, including Austria (remember Hitler was Austrian, born and raised there, an Austrian citizen until 1932, and the Austrians greeted the Germans enthusiastically when they "annexed" it -- something they have been slow to acknowledge).  Germans have very strict laws that target extreme right wing activity (including restrictions on speech and selling of any kind of Nazi memorabilia); students are taught in-depth lessons about the Nazi era and Germany's culpability and brought to concentration camps to see for themselves (contrast this with how much American students really learn about the Indian genocide or the horrors of slavery); and almost every day you can find a tv show or article somewhere about the Nazi era.  Germans are constantly being reminded of the past lest they should ever repeat it.  And one thing's for sure, Germans would never have elected Kurt Waldheim their chancellor.

Of course you can still find anti-semites in Germany, but officially the government and authorities try very hard to be extremely sensitive to the past and to relations with Jewish citizens and Israel. In comparison, elsewhere in Europe there has been little of the national collective soul searching over their roles in the deportation and murder of so many of their citizens.  This is especially true in eastern Europe, where anti-semitisim it is still fairly rampant (http://ejewishphilanthropy.com/a-frightening-perspective-eastern-european-anti-semitism-seems-too-alive-and-well/) and where most of the 6 million Jews who were murdered during the Holocaust came from (Jewish Germans, who had been fairly well assimilated, were wealthier and had many ties to non-Jewish Germans  and by comparison were able to escape at a much higher rate). Especially Hungary -- what's been going on there with the far-right Jobbik party is frightening.

Personally, if I were Jewish, it's Eastern Europe that would skeeve me out. [/quote]

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