Second generation of immigrants from German speaking countries ("Yekkes")

Ilana Shoshani grew up in Haifa. From the age of 12 to 14 she lived in Zurich, where her parents studied psychology. She attended school there and later high school in Haifa. After serving in the army for one year she became an officer already. Then she studied at the Baerwald School of Social Work and Social Welfare at the Hebrew University Jerusalem for 3 years. Then she returned to the army and worked as mental health officer and a major in the air force until 1978. Later she became a family counselor. Between 1987 to 1989 she lived in the US. She married in 1973 and has a daughter and a son. ; IS' elder brother at first was still raised in German. IS already spoke Hebrew at home, but has learned to speak German well in Switzerland. She also learned to read and write in German, and knows the Swiss dialect. However she does not master professional languages in German. Once when she accompanied the mayor of Haifa to Germany as his translator, people thought that she was German. Her son studies medicine in Los Angeles and her daughter is a lawyer. Her husband, a civil engineer, has two daughters from his first marriage. ; IS' family lived in Haifa on the Karmel, many of their neighbours were Yekkes. She had friends from various ethnic backgrounds, her parents did not have prejudices, they were more open-minded than typical Yekkes. IS never felt ashamed of her parents and has fond memories of their tours and trips together, which her father always prepared thoroughly (“Yekkish”). After her immigration, IS' mother lived in a kibbutz for seven years and waited for her father, who was deported by the British with the notorious Dunera. Her mother worked as a kindergarten teacher and learned Hebrew rather well during those years. When her fiancé finally came too, the couple moved to Haifa and spoke German among each other again. Before her father finally learned Hebrew, he first served several years in the British Navy and perfected his English. By the time IS was born the family switched more or less to Hebrew. But later her father wanted to do university studies in German. In Israel IS only spoke German with her maternal grandparents, they later returned to Germany but the grandmother came back to Israel after her husband's death. At the time of the interview IS' parents lived in a Yekkish parents' home in Haifa, her father often speaks German. IS describes the difference to her husband's parents, who came from Poland. She analyzes some cultural differences and says she has taken over some Yekkish character traits. She did not consider her parents as stiff and cold, but as rather warm and open. She thinks her children are a “cultural mixture”. ; Only when IS' daughter did research for school, her parents began to tell about their own emigration, although they told about other people's fates before. IS' daughter has visited Auschwitz and Cracow on a class-trip. Her husband's cousin lost both of her parents during the Holocaust. IS is glad that many families who were nearly extinguished in the Holocaust are now growing again. IS visited her grandparents in Germany for the first time in 1959. Although her father could have received a stipend in Germany, he consciously did his studies in Switzerland. Her parents did not mistrust everything that was German though, they even bought a Volkswagen. When IS was at school in Switzerland, she once had an anti-Semitic experience. Later, in the 1980s, IS arranged an exchange program between Wiesbaden and Kfar Saba. The city partnership works well, but during the Intifada it became less attractive. IS' children are more interested in the US, her son studies there since four years. He once went on a journey throughout Europe. All family members own German passports. IS sometimes spends longer periods abroad, but she considers Israel as her home. She does not tend to a certain political party, but at the time of the interview she is rather content with Sharon's politics.