What remains of this day? A day that was less a liberation in the literal sense, but more a moment of absolute emptiness in the face of horrific images we associate with it. 80 years after the horror of the Shoah, our view of history is in danger of fading.
Every day we witness relativizations of this unimaginable crime; even in German parliaments. The thought is almost unbearable for me that these proponents of revisionist ideas should one day assume political responsibility.
Meanwhile, attempts are being made from another side to reinterpret history. Arrested in a misguided universalism, Jews in particular are increasingly being ignored. The extermination of the Jews, which was central to the madness of the perpetrators, is increasingly fraying in the memory of our societies. This also applies to the country of the perpetrators, to Germany.
Eighty years after the Shoah, we stand at a milestone in our culture of remembrance. What does the Shoah still mean for Germany today? What does it mean in a time when we are seeing fewer and fewer witnesses to the Shoah? What does it mean in a time when more and more people in Germany have no family connection to the Nazi era?
For me personally, as a member of the second generation of Shoah survivors and victims, these are also painful questions. We grew up believing in a society and a Federal Republic of Germany that will always be aware of the horror and inhuman cruelty of the Shoah and will draw conclusions from it.
But growing indifference has consequences: 10 percent of adolescents and young adults have never heard of the Shoah—they aren’t even familiar with the term Auschwitz— 40 percent are unaware that approximately six million Jews were murdered in the Shoah, and 15 percent believe fewer than two million were. This means that a large portion of the younger generation in Germany views this period with complete ignorance.
Such developments make it clear: engaging with history is a politically contested issue. And it becomes all the more vulnerable the fewer people who can bear witness to what happened. So let’s also utilize the possibilities of digital development and reach more young people in this way. Interviews with contemporary witnesses can be digitized, and we can use digital models to make the dimension of this crime against humanity visible at authentic locations—the concentration camp memorials. In doing so, respect for the victims of the Shoah must always guide the use and development of any new technology and AI-generated content to depict the Shoah. Â
But resignation is out of the question: remembering doesn’t just mean preserving – remembering also means contradicting and taking action when history is distorted. Remembering means asking how man could have done such a thing to man. And quite simply, telling the story again and again about what happened. The Shoah is a rupture. A rupture of civilization. It concerns us all. For a long time, the act of remembering was very solitary: until 1978, the anniversary of the pogrom on November 9th was commemorated only by Jews. The fight against the prevailing “drawing a line under the past” mentality of the post-war years was fought primarily by survivors and their descendants. I don’t want to accept that we are on the way to these conditions again. Â
This editorial was originally published in Jüdische Allgemeine in German.
