From 1941 to 1945, at least 6 million European Jews were deported, tortured, and murdered by Nazi Germany during the Holocaust. In light of these evils, all symbols honoring or celebrating the Third Reich have been banned in Germany for decades—outside of museums, you’ll find no Nazi flags, swastikas, or statues of Adolf Hitler.
Yet in the United States, governments have only recently begun to take down Confederate monuments—painful symbols of white supremacy and terror—and thousands have yet to be removed, including Charlottesville’s infamous Lee and Jackson statues. As more Americans now work to properly memorialize the horrors of slavery and Jim Crow, what lessons can we learn from Germany?
Drawing from her decades of research, Jewish American philosopher Susan Neiman shed light on these critical lessons during a virtual discussion, sponsored by the UVA Democracy Initiative’s Memory Project, with journalist Michele Norris on Wednesday afternoon.
“[Germany] recognized that facing your criminal past is necessary for a country to be healthy and to become strong,” said Neiman, author of Learning from the Germans: Race and the Memory of Evil. “It can be a road to strength to have a more nuanced history and acknowledge the criminals in your past—while also finding new heroes.”
“It’s not just about what monuments we take down, but what we put up and who we honor,” she added. “Who are the people we would like to look up to [and] hold the values we want our children to hold in the 21st century?”
The shells of concentration camps and Nazi headquarters now stand as memorials and museums, narrating the horrors suffered by Jews under the fascist regime. Across the country, the former residences of Jewish Holocaust victims are marked with small brass plaques inscribed with the victim’s name, date and place of birth, and (if known) date and place of death.
It mirrored exactly what defenders of the Lost Cause like to say.
Susan Neiman, Jewish American philosopher
It took nearly four decades for Germany to take real steps toward addressing the Holocaust, explained Neiman, who has lived in Germany since the ’80s. After World War II, many Germans, particularly those living in West Germany, felt they were the victims of the war. They blamed the SS for Germany’s racial genocide and claimed German soldiers were only defending their homeland.
“It mirrored exactly what defenders of the Lost Cause like to say,” Neiman said.
While East Germany educated students on the horrors of the Nazis, West Germany didn’t discuss the war. However, as the 68ers—the generation born after the war—came of age, they learned the truth from accounts published by Holocaust survivors, and demanded the country answer for its crimes.
“Young people went out to dig out and restore the ruin of concentration camps [and] Gestapo torture chambers and turn them into monuments,” said Neiman.
This grassroots movement eventually led West German president Richard von Weizsäcker to own up to Germany’s guilt in a famous 1985 speech, sparking the creation of state memorials and museums that honored Nazi victims; comprehensive education on the Third Reich’s crimes; and cash reparations to Holocaust survivors.
As the United States atones for its violent history, it must go beyond removing racist statues, Neiman stressed. There must be a sweeping effort to educate the country on racial injustice, both inside and outside the classroom.
“This is a multigenerational project,” Neiman said. “It’s not going to take place overnight. This is something that our children will still be working on.”
The scholar also emphasized the need for a national memorial to enslaved people, as well as reparations owed to their descendants.
“The Germans can provide a moral example [that] it’s really not enough to say, ‘gee I’m sorry, we shouldn’t have done that,’” she said. “Something concrete needs to be done as well.”