Danke Schoen!

​Given the Holocaust, several of the ironies of the 20th century are the fact that most of world Jewry, 80%, are Ashkenazim, or German Jews. That’s what the Hebrew word means, “Germans.” Another irony is that 85% of the vocabulary of their language, Yiddish, are German cognates. My Ashkenazi parents, for example, would always gossip in Yiddish to keep the juicy tidbits from my sister and me—that is, until I learned enough German to understand. But by then, I was already away at college and Natalie was married and living in Argentina. So it no longer mattered.

But my theme today is only tangentially related to this German-Jewish connection. Instead, its focus is on the meaning of the 1959 German popular song—produced in the U.S. by the Jewish Milt Gabler—with the title of this blog, “Danke Schoen.” Pronounced “Danke Schain” in Yiddish, it means “thank you,” or, literally, “I thank you beautifully.” So today, dear reader, I’ll talk a bit about being thankful. For those of us lucky enough to have been members of one of the 12-Step Programs, in my case Al-Anon, we learn about the “attitude of gratitude.” Addicts are not noted for positive attitudes to life, and being thankful is not one of their usual habits. Just Say Thank You is therefore a typical 12-Step slogan along with the likes of One Day at a Time, Take It Easy, and Let Go and Let God.
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The German mystic Meister Eckhart (d. 1327/28) is noted for saying, “If the only prayer you say is thank-you, it will suffice.” I try to quietly say or think my thank-yous at least ten times a day. Doing so helps me stay mindful of the many blessings in my life. It’s easiest of course with big things, for example, when our car skids on ice but stops or turns away just before careening into the oncoming vehicle. But practicing with even the small change of life—a tasty meal, a completed task, a well-made bed, a nice deed done by a roommate, even a good BM—shows us how much we have to be grateful for every day. As an 84-year-old, when my back goes out or my newly replaced knee hurts, I’ll remind myself that many people my age—and younger—are dead. I see it in the daily newspaper obits. So I’ll offer not an enthusiastic but still a sincere Danke Schoen for even these owees.

Recently I’ve learned about the Polish Franciscan friar and priest St. Maximilian Kolbe. After a childhood encounter with the Virgin Mary in his parish church, he determined he would live gratefully in a lifelong attempt to help his fellow human beings. After the German Army invaded Poland in 1939, the start of World War II in Europe, he and his 700 fellow friars continued to publish articles and tracts that the invaders didn’t like. Fr. Kolbe, their head, ended up in Auschwitz. At the time, 1941, the camp policy was that if any member of a block tried to escape, ten other members would be randomly selected for death by starvation. When this happened in Fr. Kolbe’s block, he was not selected. But one of the men who was cried that he would never see his wife or young children again. Fr. Kolbe broke ranks, walked to Commandant Frisch, and said, “Please let me take that man’s place.” Frisch purportedly replied, “One pig is as good as another. Go ahead.” Later, in the starvation house, Fr. Kolbe encouraged his fellow victims by singing hymns that praised and thanked God. He, the priest, was among the last to die, in his case by lethal injection, and is now the patron saint of drug addicts. Martyrdom, to be sure, is not required. Still, the practice of daily gratitude could help each of us have happier, more fulfilling lives.

St. Maximilian Kolbe (d. 1941 in Auschwitz)