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16 The Matter of Identity Invited by Carl Rosenberg, the editor of Outlook, Canada’s Progressive Jewish Magazine, to contribute a think piece, HK produced this article, which later appeared in a German translation.1 In his retirement years, HK reflected on the extraordinary, often tragic, twists and turns of his early life: the interruption of his family life and education; his internment by the British even though, like so many other “enemy aliens,” he had more experience of the Nazi menace and was as a result more solidly anti-Nazi than many of his warders; his eventual adoption of not only Canadian residence and citizenship but a career devoted to the study and documentation of Canadian music. Between 1996 and 2004, HK edited and circulated entirely on his own initiative ten issues of an “Internees’ Newsletter,” keeping his aging fellow-survivors of the Canadian wartime internment in touch with news of each other’s activities. Sojourns in Europe renewed his feelings of belonging to a German cultural heritage: these included vacation visits to Germany in 1962, 1971, 1994 (on the invitation of the Senate of Berlin, extended to ex-Berliners persecuted by the Nazis), and 1995 (as a speaker at the opening of an exhibition concerning the former Jewish residents of Berlin-Schöneberg); Austria in 1997; and Germany again in 2002. He regularly conversed in German with Traute Weinberg, the companion of his last decade. The “long form” of the Canadian census, starting point of his commentary, was abolished by the Canadian government as a cost-saving measure just before the census of 2011: such questions are no longer asked.  Outlook, Canada’s Progressive Jewish Magazine 39/4 (July/August 2001), 15–16; reprinted by permission of Carl Rosenberg, editor Mapping Canada’s Music 218 What is my identity and what does identity mean? I was born and raised in Berlin in a liberal German-Jewish family. I left by Kindertransport for London in 1939, and was interned and sent to Canada in 1940 with over 2,000 other refugees. Of these, some 900 settled in Canada in the late years of the war.2 By now I have lived in Canada for over sixty years, and during my employed life I have devoted nearly all my time, research and writing to matters related to music in Canada. If national identity were simply a matter of choice I would be happiest to be nothing but a Canadian. But the recent Statistics Canada Census (long form) inquired about my ethnic origin and my religion. Should I answer Jewish and Jewish? And here I get in a conflict not only with the census designers but with a majority of Canadian Jews with ancestors in Eastern Europe who feel themselves an ethnic unit even more than adherents of a religion. Ethnic origin: for generations my ancestors have spoken nothing but German, the few Hebrew phrases my parents knew from prayers were learned by rote; they could hardly translate them. In my case ethnic origin involves not only language (including a lifelong accent)—all the books I read in my youth were written in or translated into my mother tongue— but also folksongs, and a cultural and geographical environment. What else does “ethnic” mean? To be honest, I put down “German” on the census form. Religion: the Census form (question 22) asked for one’s religion “even if the person isn’t practicing.” I answered “Jewish,” because I have a certain interest in the history and sociology of religion, though from childhood I went to synagogue only when pushed, and in Canada only for weddings or funerals. Why does the Census want to bolster numbers by including non-believers? Is an identity necessary? Is it a matter of personal choice, or is it an objective fact independent of my will, Jew-German-Canadian? I can distinguish three kinds of identity: involuntary, forced and voluntary. Involuntary identities are one’s mother tongue, one’s family, childhood and early environment. My fellow ex-internees all remember identities forced upon us—assuming the names of Sara or Israel in 1939 and a year later being designated “Enemy Aliens—Prisoners of War, Second Class.” Voluntary identity is one’s decision to identify with a circle of friends, a spouse, a profession, a political party, a system of philosophy, a club, a city or a country. As human beings we always remain tied to our youth. What then has happened to our ties with the German and...

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