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The winner of numerous awards for her efforts in Europe, the Middle East, and North America, Rosmus represents to many the legacy of the Holocaust in memory, education, and action in the continuing struggle against bigotry and anti-Semitism. Many of the passages are long winded and detailed without charm. The full weight of the anti-Semitism of the past that still lives on today is stultifying. This book stands on its merits of bringing that which thrived in darkness to light. In this town alone, any number of people went out of their way to prosecute their Jewish neighbors and turned blind eyes to starving and tortured denizens of the camps positioned right next the the town. Based on her grandmother's and mother's teachings and attempts to help the enslaved, Anna has found it impossible to leave the dead unmourned.
This reached a pinnacle during the period of post Weimar Republic and WWII. Ms. Rosmus has done a good job giving those of us who did not have to endure what happened some insight as to how it happened.. Just one day earlier, however, things had looked considerably different. So read the final appeal, read by many of the citizens of Passau, on Monday, 30 April 1945, in what was to be the final issue of the local newspaper, the Donauzeitung. Once one of the most powerful publications in the area, it now consisted of just one meager page. And on that day in April, this single page contained a single, final appeal.
Reader Q&A
The author grew up there and speaks frankly about the city's embracing Hitler up to very recent times. Anna Elisabeth Rasmus is a German woman who was born and raised in the city of Passau. She was raised in the period after the war and eventually became obsessed with her city’s history of the war. Her desire for truth led to conflict not only in her home city, but in her country as well. There was even a movie about her, one that I will be tracking down.
On 18 July 1994 I extended an offer to Dr. Brunner, of the Passau cultural council, as well as to the members of the Passau city council, to read the enthusiastic letters I had received from the Americans. That way they could see for themselves how sincere the American veterans were, and how much they were looking forward to a return to Passau. In the meantime, approximately one hundred of the veterans had indicated that they would be coming. I continued to petition for just enough money to cover an overnight stay in a hotel and to fund a reception at city hall to be made available for this group to make a one-day visit to Passau. There also was to be an organ concert at the cathedral and a short cruise on the Danube. Additionally I suggested inviting the citizens of Passau to the reception in order to facilitate and encourage contact between the two groups.
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The appeal was written by Commander Major General von Hassenstein. However, by the time the appeal appeared in print and the people of Passau had a chance to read it, General von Hassenstein had long since completed the arrangements for his death by assassination—that is, his suicide—which was to be carried out in his domicile in a nearby forest. When faced with these facts, I was determined to do anything I could to change the situation in favor of a more honorable form of commemoration. For a ceremony planned for the year 1995, I wanted to find at least fifty survivors of the concentration camps as well as fifty members of the liberation forces.
I learned a great deal of history about the Nazis and the people of Germany from Ms. Rosmus. There is a long history and one that should have been uncovered. Having visited Eastern Europe last year, I was most enchanted by Passau. During that trip I was brought so close to my father and the fact he had been a German POW for 14 months. I picked this book up to read about Passau and found a deeply moving and enlightening understanding of German Nationalism and anti-Semitism. I gathered a new understanding of American racism and the deep connection to it and the election of our President Elect.
Praise for Out of Passau
Strange that all of these terrible events, though long past and, for many, long since forgotten, are for me still very present. As unimaginable as it is that fifty years later I, a native of Passau, would find myself standing face to face with some of these Americans, the very men who all those years ago had been the ones shouting out Hitler kaputt! To my fellow countrymen; that I would one day be holding in my hands their hand-drawn plans of the lines of troop advancements and sketches of maps copied from old books; that I would be reading their diaries and private letters or making photocopies of their personal photographs from their time in Germany. Ultimately they would give me confiscated documents and appoint me an honorary member of their division. And their experiences would affect my life in such a way that it would never be the same again.
The occasion for the service was the liberation of the concentration camp Mauthausen. On Sunday, 5 May 1946 a High Mass and a Te Deum were celebrated at the cathedral. The priest, the story reported, had delivered an impressive sermon. A delegation of men and women, former prisoners of Mauthausen, were present at the event.
About Anna Rosmus
Anna Rosmus was born in 1960 in the pleasant middle-class town of Passau. Aged 20 she began to realise that her hometown had a dark past, and was inextricably linked to the Nazi regime. When she began to investigate what had happened there during the war she met only hostility and a deep reluctance to face the facts. This motivated her to delve even deeper and it wasn’t long before she became a committed activist and has since devoted her life to revealing the atrocities perpetrated in her native town and surrounding area and to campaigning for the commemoration of all who suffered there. Legislative Resolution honoring "the tireless, courageous and often life-threatening efforts... against the acts and effects of racism, bigotry and hatred, remembering the warnings of a tragic and blackened history...to educate future generations" by the State of New York, in October 1992.
"Dictators are possible only because of the people who support them and follow their orders." Bravo, sadly, Anna Rosmus. Gives details of the present day cover up of shocking events in city of Passau during Nazi Reich. Anna Rosmus, from Passau, Germany, is the real-life heroine of the 1990 Verhoeven film "The Nasty Girl", who as a teenager, uncovered her hometown's hidden Nazi past. Know that Asmus is respectful and reserved in her descriptions, but that the information by its very nature is stark and painful, even for those of us a hemisphere and decades removed. Thus, expect that you may need to read a few passages at a time. I can't imagine the toll of making these discoveries avout your home, coping with widespread denial, and persisting in bearing witness.
Instead, he insisted that the concrete block holding the Star of David be removed. It was high time, fully fifty years after the end of the Second World War, to bring together the American liberators with the victims in some sort of true commemoration, something that would honestly address the history of the town and the region. On 7 September, however, we were certain that some 140 U.S. veterans would be arriving in Passau on 3 May. On the morning of the next day the men of the 71st Infantry Division would leave Passau and travel further to Gunskirchen in Austria, where fifty years earlier they had liberated the concentration camp there. Again I turned to Dr. Brunner of the Passau office of cultural affairs and to the bishop of Passau, Dr. Franz Xaver Eder.
They have refused to attend the conferences of the Jews who return to the camps which they survived. One man makes sordid toasts to the mothers of infants who were murdered and buried on his vacation land. Rather chilling description of the city that Hitler called home. It was the site of several concentration camps and was host to early Hitler rallies.
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