Christmas There was always something unpredictable about my Jewish childhood and youth. We only found out in the hotel lobby that we were even going to celebrate because the all-inclusive buffet in the evening suddenly had the “Holy Night” motto. Another year, a friend of my parents showed up, whose life was a bit in trouble at the time, and we actually only drank Ahoj-Brause with vodka throughout the evening, while my father Silent night, holy night hummed.
My sister calls that Christmas of our childhood traumatic because the way we celebrated it so reliably set us apart from all the other children in Munich. My father’s Judaism also offered little support: When my non-Jewish mother lit the Hanukkah candles, my father placed a paper napkin on his head as a yarmulke.
