Introduction to That Time Cannot Be Forgotten

“There are so many questions without answers,” writes Paul Friedhoff in a letter to Dr. Emil Georg Sold. But one of those questions—how could the Holocaust have happened?—bears a personal signficance for both of these men. Therefore, in an exchange made all the more powerful because of who they are and where they come from, Friedhoff and Sold have struggled together in an attempt to answer the unanswerable.

Both were born in the Rhineland-Palatinate region of Germany at the beginning of the twentieth century, and though Friedhoff preceded Sold by thirteen years, they witnessed many of the same political and social changes that occurred during the first half of this century. Their perspectives, however, could not have been more different—Sold was Catholic and served in the Wehrmacht during World War II, while Friedhoff, as a Jew, escaped from Germany and Hitler and fled to the United States.

At twenty-seven years old in 1934, Friedhoff sensed the course that Germany would take with Hitler, and he convinced his family to leave the small town where his mother had been born, where they had a home, friends and relatives, and where they had spent their lives. Subsequently, he helped over three hundred Jews get out of Germany, and as a result he has been likened to Oskar Schindler.

Sold has spent much of his later years revisiting the Hitler period in his mind, trying to promote understanding and relations between peoples and religions. In an attempt to atone for a national history that gnaws at him personally, he has lectured, erected memorials, and written books. He wrote, for example, a book on the Jews of Schifferstadt (a town in the Rhineland-Palatinate), and it was that book that led to the initial contact of the two men: Friedhoff received the book from a bank in Schifferstadt, and when he responded with comments on the book, the bank forwarded the letter to Sold.

Thus, a half-century after circumstances had placed them in different worlds, Friedhoff and Sold suddenly found themselves in a correspondence that covered the many issues surrounding that earlier time, and in particular, the many issues surrounding the Holocaust—racism, hatred, religion, philosophy, government and education. In a sharp and candid exchange, they investigate the events and ideas that produced the Holocaust. Their discussions often lead to conflict and only sometimes end in resolution, for theirs is not a genteel rehashing of generally accepted views on human rights. Rather, Sold and Friedhoff tackle difficult issues and do not blunt their arguments for fear of offending the other. In several sections, for instance, they discuss whether ordinary Germans knew of the concentration camps—Friedhoff vehemently insists that they did; Sold says that they, or at least he, did not.

Their candor also exposes the true complexity of their subject. Sold admits that he had never talked to a Jew until 1978, and yet, he discovers years later that his daughter has married someone of Jewish descent. Friedhoff acknowledges that even he had once been a proud German—recalling how, during the first World War I, his father hung the national flag out the window whenever the Germans captured a Russian city—and yet Friedhoff has not considered himself a German from the day he dropped his bags on American soil.

Despite the obstacle of never having seen one another, the two become very good friends, and the correspondence becomes an integral part of both their lives. Even if they cannot agree, they learn to respect the other’s position, and, especially because of the volatile nature of their topics, that mutual respect alone provides a stunning example for others in all kinds of conflicts. It also provides hope that perhaps other disagreements could be resolved without resorting to violence or war.

If Friedhoff and Sold cannot answer the unanswerable—how could the Holocaust have happened?—what they do know is that it cannot be forgotten. In remembering and attempting to understand, they hope to save the following generations from enduring what their generation had, and has to endure. And in that way, their letters are not so much about the past as they are about the future.