Veiling History at the Leo Baeck Institute

What Has Happened to the LBI ?

The Seven Veils of Irene Runge

Something was amiss from the start.  The venerable Leo Baeck Institute of New York, home for much scholarly research and documentation of German Jewish history and culture, invites to an evening with Irene Runge (Aug. 28, 2013):

"Irene Runge … was born the daughter of German-Jewish emigres in Manhattan in 1942.  In 1949, she returned to Berlin (East) with her parents, committed Socialists who wanted to help build a different kind of Germany in the newly founded German Democratic Republic (GDR)."

Committed "Socialists" who wish to live in Stalin's "German Democratic Republic"  ?  The correct description for these folks is Communists, Stalinist Communists.  And "Communists,"  indeed, is the term used in the German press to describe Ms. Runge's parents.   Why does the LBI engage in this bit of obscurism, of veiling, of not telling how it is ?  As we shall see, there were quite a few other things that Ms. Runge and the LBI organizers of this event chose to veil.  

I attended the evening with my daughter Rachel.  The event was co-sponsored by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, an agency of the German Left party.  (This Foundation is known for its anti-Israel agitation worldwide.)  Of course there was no mention of what the martyred Rosa had thought of her Jewish roots, although, surely, I could not have been the only one in this audience of aged Jews who knew about it:

In 1917 she wrote her friend Mathilde Wurm a harsh response to the latter’s concern about pogroms. “I have no room in my heart for Jewish suffering,” Rosa declared outright. “Why do you pester me with Jewish troubles? I feel closer to the wretched victims of the rubber plantations of Putumayo or the Negroes in Africa… I have no separate corner in my heart for the ghetto.” (From Sarah Honig)

Runge's speech was meandering and only rarely touched on the autobiographical themes that had been promised.  The totalitarianism of the GDR in her childhood was never mentioned, nor did the subject of Israel come up in any sustained way.  Runge took some sideswipes at what she considered Israel's bad position in regard to the immigration of Russian Jews to Germany.  She also complained that an Israeli journalist in Berlin, a critic of Israel, was not given an adequate hearing by the community.  But this theme was not emphasized.  Nothing of a political nature was emphasized.  Her tone was light-hearted and joking, much to the pleasure of her many friends in the audience.

But there was an elephant in the room which nobody wanted to notice.  I had written an email to the LBI leadership about the proboscidean earlier in the day, but had not received a reply.  The problem which nobody at this meeting mentioned is that Ms. Runge had been a secret spy for the Stasi for seventeen years, and, for that reason, had been dismissed from her East Berlin university after the fall of the Wall.  There is a record of at least one of her Stasi accomplishments.  It seems that a family of her acquaintance was planning to flee East Germany.  Ms. Runge reported this to her Stasi handlers, and the family in question was sent to prison.  Ms. Runge received a special financial reward for this work at the time, as well as a special certificate of merit.

Much of Ms. Runge's Stasi background can be found here.  But in a recent interview, Ms. Runge complains that it is she who has been victimized by being dismissed from the university.  In any case, if she has any regrets for her Stasi work, these have not come to light in any of the statements of hers that I have seen. On the contrary, she remains stridently unapologetic.

Back to the meeting at the LBI.  An octogenarian operative of the Berlin office of the American Jewish Committee took the floor during the discussion period to praise Ms. Runge's efforts on behalf of Russian Jewish immigrants to Berlin after the fall of the Wall.  After the meeting ended, I took the opportunity to chat with this gentleman.  "Yes, yes, I know all about her," he told me.  "In fact, I myself have been reported to the Stasi by her.  But with all that, I like this woman."  And everyone in the room -- I being the only exception -- was charmed by Irene,  this loquacious, witty, charming Berliner.