For some American Jews, a path to German citizenship opens options their ancestors never had

(CNN) — Scott Mayerowitz grew up in New Jersey in a household with resentment toward Germany, his family’s motherland.

He has ancestors who were killed in the Holocaust, and his Jewish grandparents were forced to flee their homes there in the 1930s because of the Nazis.

“There was always this sense not just that the Nazis had killed the family, but that the whole country had,” said Mayerowitz, 46, whose parents refused to have German-made products in the family home or drive a German car.

But as the former political reporter turned travel consultant stood at the German consulate in New York in May 2024 during what he called a “very moving” naturalization ceremony to become a German citizen, he said he was surprised by his feelings.

“I started this process for very practical reasons and did not expect the emotional tie to the ‘motherland’ to happen, but now there is a bit more of a connection,” said Mayerowitz, who first began the application process in 2019, together with his mother and 9-year-old daughter. They are now all naturalized German citizens.

Enshrined in the German constitution since 1949, Article 116 (2) of the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany grants former German citizens who were persecuted and their descendants restored German citizenship.

It states:

Former German citizens who, between 30 January 1933 and 8 May 1945, were deprived of their citizenship on political, racial or religious grounds and their descendants shall, on application, have their citizenship restored.

For people who can prove their ancestral links and gather the required documents, German citizenship — and with it, European Union citizenship — is within reach.

A pile of paperwork

The application process to restore the family’s German citizenship was far from easy, said Mayerowitz, who did not hire a lawyer at any step along the way.

“It was an extremely difficult and at times frustrating process. But once we crossed the threshold of being accepted and that we had the right documents, then it became an efficient bureaucracy,” he said.

Mayerowitz’s mother, Susan, largely (and reluctantly) took the lead on procuring all the documents – marriage licenses, naturalization papers and more – that went as far back as her grandfather’s 1869 birth certificate.

“I was very hesitant to do it; I would never have done it if it weren’t for Scott,” she said.

All four of Susan’s grandparents were killed at the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland, in addition to several other family members.

“My parents must be turning over in their graves. My mother swore she would never set foot in Germany again,” she said.

Scott, who visited Auschwitz with his parents during an Eastern Europe trip in 2006, said he explained to her that his desire to get German citizenship was about the options that come with European Union citizenship.

“I told her it’s not even so much for me as for your granddaughter,” he said.

“I laid it out that it could open educational opportunities for my daughter, make it easier for her to live and work anywhere in the EU in the future. And finally, I said if for some reason she one day needed to flee the US for persecution, this opened up a lot more doors.”

‘A matter of principle’

While the Mayerowitz family handled the application process themselves, many people seeking citizenship turn to attorneys for help.

Marius Tollenaere, a partner at immigration law firm Fragomen in Frankfurt, Germany, says his firm has primarily worked with residents of the United States, Israel, the United Kingdom and South Africa to restore their German citizenship, in addition to other clients from around the world.

“For many clients, it is a matter of principle that they want to use this constitutional right to undo the grave injustice of having been deprived of their German citizenship,” he told CNN via email. “We also see elderly clients who want to say I am a German citizen again during their lifetime.”

“We have seen a significant increase in applications from the UK as many clients feel they are cut off from Europe post-Brexit and want to retain those ties to the European Union,” he said.

There is no generational limit to who can apply for restoration of German citizenship through Article 116 (2), said Tollenaere, calling it “an eternal right of descendants of Germans citizens who faced persecution between 1933 and 1945.”

And while the restoration application process is free of charge and does not include a court proceeding, finding old documents to prove family links can be a major stumbling block, he said. And that’s where hiring a firm can help.

“However, the German citizenship authorities are aware that due to the very nature of the persecution that led to the right to restoration in the first place, not all documents may be available anymore,” he said.

Applications also must be completed in German, according to government instructions. Instructions, forms and a list of supporting documents are available online.

‘It gave me a sense of empowerment’

Ann Barnett, 30, of Arlington, Virginia, said she was fortunate when applying to restore her German citizenship through a grandparent that a family member had paved the way before her by procuring all the old documents.

It was her uncle who first approached her with the idea of applying together as a family group that included her mother, two additional uncles and five cousins.

“I certainly did have conflicted feelings as a Jewish person given the history in Germany and my anxiety about how it might change my identity/self-perception,” she said.

“However, as I gave it more thought and went through the process, it gave me a sense of empowerment – a door was open for me to regain status from a country where some of my ancestors had had their German citizenship stolen from them, and which shattered countless lives.”

Barnett says her mother was initially upset that she would want citizenship from a country that exterminated so many of their family members.

“Eventually though, she came around and accepted my decision (because, unfortunately, of the growing antisemitism in the US),” she said.

Barnett said she feels Germany has worked hard “to establish means of atonement for their wrongdoings and crimes against humanity” – a  perspective that’s given her hope, even as the idea of traveling to Europe soon on her new German passport makes her stomach flutter with nerves.

“As I have moved forward from this process, I have seriously reflected on my own identity as an American-German Jewish person,” Barnett said. “The takeaway has been learning to accept ownership of a portion of my identity that was obliterated almost 90 years ago.”

Not everyone has qualms

Stewart Koesten of the South Florida financial planning firm Aspyre Wealth Partners says he applied for German citizenship for his family as descendants of his mother, who came to the United States in 1934. He said he “didn’t feel any conflicts in doing so.”

“Seeking dual citizenship and a fire escape plan is good planning. It isn’t an issue of loyalty, but it could be an issue of survival,” Koesten said, referring to anti-immigration, anti-semitism, increasing gun incidents in schools, violence on the streets, political issues and income taxes among reasons a family might want an “emergency plan.”

“We met separately with our children to discuss our plans and how we planned to help them should it become necessary. It was not an easy conversation,” he said. “I also helped educate my cousins here and abroad about the logic of a fire escape plan. To date, many of my family members have followed my counsel and secured citizenship in a second country.”

Erin Levi, 41, a travel writer in Connecticut, said she has always wanted to live in Europe and envied friends who had the option to stay longer than a visa allows.

She first learned about the possibility of getting German citizenship during a trip she took to the country in 2010 with visitor’s program Germany Close Up. The organization invites North American Jewish students between 18 and 39  to “meet modern Germany” during programs financed in part by the German Government’s Transatlantic Program.

“Someone in Berlin mentioned if you’re a descendant of a German Jew who lost their citizenship, you can apply to get it reinstated,” Levi recalled. “I’d been jealous of friends getting Italian and Irish citizenship through their relatives and couldn’t believe I never knew about it. I thought, ‘Oh, I am definitely going to look into this.’ ”

While both of Levi’s parents were born in the United States, her dad is the only child of Holocaust survivors and her mother’s side has Ukrainian-Jewish roots. She initially tabled her quest after running into trouble finding old documents but eventually found her grandfather’s US alien ID card. It was stamped 1942 and had Germany as his country of citizenship.

Levi said it took her at least a year after that to get all of the additional required paperwork together.

“I applied on behalf of my sister and myself. And now my dad is like, ‘It’s good you have an exit, just in case,’ ” she said.

Looking to the future

Levi said she thinks her grandfather – who died in 2007 at the age of 96 but with whom she got to travel to Germany in the 1990s on a family trip to the town where he grew up – would be proud and happy for her.

And she said that while she hasn’t received any pushback from her Jewish American friends for becoming a German citizen, Levi said some German family members who aren’t Jewish wondered why she’d even want a German passport since she already has an American one.

For her, however, it’s a no-brainer. She said she feels a bit safer in Germany, too, than other countries with rising anti-semitism.

“I think Germany has become such a strong ally and supporter of Israel. It’s incredible to see the responsibility they’ve taken for the atrocities they committed. There aren’t that many other countries that have,” she said.

Scott Mayerowitz concurs.

“I do feel Germany, more than any other country, has accepted what the past was and has made sure to educate the next generation so we don’t repeat history,” he said. “It’s honestly a lot more than we are doing in some parts of the US right now.”

When he went into the German consulate in New York to apply for his German passport, which should be arriving any day now, Mayerowitz said he felt a sense of pride.

“I walked into the consulate and was like, this is now also my country,” he said.

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