Germans Feel Tugs of History on a Day of Light and Darkness
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BERLIN -- Germans felt the push and pull of their history again on Tuesday, when Nov. 9 came up on the calendar. That is the day in 1938 when Hitler's gangs attacked Jewish property in a prelude to the Holocaust, and the very same day 51 years later when the wall dividing East and West was breached, signaling the end of the cold war.
Germans take the business of remembering very seriously, and so Nov. 9 has always presented a bit of a challenge -- how to celebrate the joy of the wall's coming down while at the same time commemorating the night of terror known as Kristallnacht, or the night of broken glass.
Initially, remembrance trumped celebration. But that seems to be changing.
"I think it's the beginning in the shift in narrative, and that is a concern," said Deidre Berger, director of the American Jewish Committee's Berlin office. "It's a concern of what young people know about this day."
The nightly news seemed to prove her view of shifting narratives. The top report talked about Germany's celebrating the wall's coming down, followed by a report on the "Jewish community" marking Kristallnacht.
"A circle is closing," said Cilly Kugelmann, deputy director of the Jewish Museum in Berlin, who said she took note of the change in the way the events were reported. "For the first time in 20 or 30 years, the Jewish congregations commemorate Kristallnacht for themselves."
Germans are not forgetting the Holocaust. It is too much a part of their everyday lives, embedded not only in the collective memory but also in the decentralized system of governance that was designed specifically to prevent the rise of another Hitler. Even now, the Nazi past often seems a topic of daily news reports, as Germans unearth new secrets about their parents and grandparents. For example, one recent report proved the Foreign Ministry's deep involvement in the Third Reich, something it had covered up for decades.
But even the best efforts at preservation can be worn down by the effects of time and the eclipsing shadow of an event that, like the wall's coming down, is relevant to many more people who are alive today.
First Published November 10, 2010 2:01 am
