From Germany and Back Again in Three Generations-A Family Reclaims Its Heritage
Dr. Miriam L. Zimmerman and Dr. Leah Sharp
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Dr. Miriam L. Zimmerman became a German citizen in 2004, a positive heritage that motivates her to reach out to Germans. Her father, Dr. Werner Loewenstein, immigrated to the United States in 1937 and, as a U.S. soldier, returned to Germany and became a liberator of Buchenwald. While growing up, all things German were verboten in the Loewenstein family home, including the beautiful German language.
One of Miriam’s dreams is to tell her family story to German schoolchildren in Germany, auf Deutsch.
Leah Z. Sharp teaches physics at CSU East Bay. Prior to her return to the Bay Area last summer, she was a graduate student at the Technische Universität München for five years, and speaks German. During that time, and with encouragement from Miriam, her mother, she also became a German citizen. She experienced a Munich and a Germany perhaps unrecognizable to her grandfather, who studied medicine at the University of Munich in the early 1930’s. (Dr. Sharp currently lives in Germany with her family.)
Spanning three generations of German-Jewish-Americans, the story of Dr. Werner Loewenstein’s impact on the lives of his descendants is not just another Holocaust story of victimization and redemption. Although Dr. Loewenstein experienced the worst that humanity could offer, his legacy is transformed by Miriam’s story of healing and forgiveness and by Leah's experience living in modern Germany that provides hope for future generations.
