JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
A growing number of American Jews whose families fled Germany in the years before the Holocaust are now seeking German citizenship. Many say the move rights historic wrongs. Others just want an easier time traveling in Europe. But as NPR religion correspondent Jason DeRose reports, some fear political shifts in the U.S.
JASON DEROSE, BYLINE: The family story is fresh in Eric Podietz's mind.
ERIC PODIETZ: My mother was born in 1926. And in 1933, when Hitler came to power, the screws started tightening.
DEROSE: Clamping down on schools, the media, dissent, blatant antisemitism. By the late 1930s, his mother and grandparents had fled to the U.S. As an adult, Podietz's mother never forgot the country she was forced to flee.
E PODIETZ: She was intent on going back and finding out what happened to family members, what happened to the property that they owned. And she was a force to be reckoned with.
DEROSE: But his grandfather wanted nothing to do with Germany, refusing to speak German or ride in German cars, which is why Podietz was surprised a few years ago when his sister suggested applying for German citizenship.
EVA-LYNN PODIETZ: I just thought, well, it really would be good to have this passport. You know, Jews are almost always in exile, you know? And so that's maybe part of being Jewish.
DEROSE: Eva-Lynn Podietz is a retired social worker in New York City.
E L PODIETZ: It's not necessarily that I'd want to go to Germany, although I think they're so aware of what had happened there that it may be OK. But at least I want an option to go someplace if things get very bad here.
DAVID YOUNG: There's been a pretty dramatic increase of people applying for this over the last eight years or so.
DEROSE: David Young is a New York attorney whose company, Becoming German, has helped about 1,500 people gain German citizenship. In 2021, a new German law expanded who's eligible to apply, focusing on the descendants of Jews who fled Nazi persecution. For many, Young says, people wanted the passport as an option but had no real plan to leave.
YOUNG: Now it's more people that are really concretely thinking about doing this and who are thinking about moving in a short period of time.
DEROSE: Young says so many people are applying German officials are overwhelmed, slowing down the process. High school science teacher Joe Sacks and his family in Washington, D.C., sent off the paperwork earlier this year.
JOE SACKS: It is a pretty weird thing, like, sending all our personal information to the German government. You know, there's, like, a form, and you click like, yes, I'm Jewish on the German form and send it to the German guys. Wild.
DEROSE: Wild, says Sacks, and poignant, whether due to national politics or rising antisemitism.
SACKS: That is definitely the story of the wandering Jewish people, yeah. What are the circumstances under which you are in favor and are not in favor? I suppose it's always seemed very, very tenuous.
JUDY SPRING: That does strike a chord with me.
DEROSE: Judy Spring is a clinical psychologist from suburban Philadelphia, whose family fled Germany just before World War II.
SPRING: My mother had often talked about always have a plan B, and in the sense that you could pick up at any time, your passport is very important.
DEROSE: Spring says she often finds herself talking about U.S. politics today the way her mother talked about 1930's Germany. That comparison came up repeatedly among the people interviewed for this piece.
SPRING: It just kind of feels like history is repeating itself here. And often, I think, well, what would my mother do if she were alive now?
DEROSE: It's a trenchant question Eric Podietz has been asking himself, too.
E PODIETZ: This rise of authoritarianism just parallels the rise of Hitler and the squelching of speech and the, you know, academic institutions being compromised. And it just seems like the signs are there. You know, the events are there. It's happening. It is scary.
DEROSE: The safer option for American Jews, he says, could be Germany. Jason DeRose, NPR News.
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