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For the leaders of Haltern Am See, Germany, bestowing the city's highest honor on its only Jewish Holocaust survivor was a necessary step. For the recipient, it means a heightened sense of responsibility.

"I take it extremely seriously," Alexander Lebenstein, 80, said after returning home to Henrico County last week.

In addition to naming him an honorary citizen of Haltern -- an honor not given to anyone in a half-century -- a school there now bears his name. The Alexander Lebenstein Realschule also carries the title "school against racism, school with courage."

At a ceremony this month, city leaders cited Lebenstein's work for tolerance and peace, particularly with students, since he first returned to visit in 1995.

"Every one of us would have understood very well, had you turned away from Germany and Haltern after everything that the terror regime of the National Socialists did to you and your family," said Heinrich Wiengarten, spokesman for Haltern's city council. "But you offered your hand for reconciliation."

The 48-member council's decision to make Lebenstein an honorary citizen was unanimous. In his speech at the June 4 event, Mayor Bodo Klimpel apologized for the actions of Haltern's leaders during the Nazi era.

"The fate of our Jewish citizens is something which still worries me today as it was one of my predecessors who organized injustice and crime," said Klimpel, according to a summary of his remarks.

"Offenders are guilty of what they have done," he said, but recent generations have had to contend with the consequences of that guilt. "That is one of the reasons why we mustn't forget this chapter of German history: for the sake of the victims in the first place, but also for our sake."

But while Lebenstein was treated like a celebrity during his visit to Haltern, he said an experience during an earlier leg of his trip weighed heavily on him.

He had long wanted to return to Riga, Latvia, where his family had been moved to live in a Jewish ghetto and where both of his parents were killed. He said his mother, Lotti, was taken to a nearby forest and never returned. He believes she is buried in a mass grave there.

In the deserted Rumbula forest, one of two in Latvia where thousands of Jews were massacred, Lebenstein and his companion, Celeste Kocen, walked past large, grassy mounds that mark the location of mass graves.

"It kept replaying in my mind," he said. "You were in this huge forest. First, I heard the birds singing. Then, I heard only machine guns."

But he said something drew him back to one of the sites a second time.

"I thought I felt something," Lebenstein said. "I went back there and my eyes were opened." He saw huge bushes of lilacs, his mother's favorite flower. He broke off a lilac and placed it on one of the grave sites.

"My emotions from Riga really took a hold of me," Lebenstein said. "It was very difficult. The feeling of sadness never left me. I still feel it."

Questions from students also revive painful memories at times.

"The sounds and smells come back," he said.

But as difficult as it can be to confront the past, Lebenstein is committed to continuing to work at what has become his mission -- teaching tolerance -- and to keeping in touch with the Haltern school and its teachers and students. He said he would like to develop an exchange program and take some students from the United States to Germany.

Anita Lane, the mother of two girls who befriended Lebenstein through their Haltern school, said in an e-mail message yesterday that he has inspired many students to work on projects against racism.

"These children will have gone home and will have spoken to their parents and maybe also grandparents," she said. "Alexander said he is only a drop in the ocean, but that drop has made ripples and these ripples spread and do not stop."
Contact Tina Eshleman at (804) 649-6304 or teshleman@timesdispatch.com.