Germany’s “memory culture” prevents it from coping with Gaza
Atonement for the Holocaust has sometimes become unquestioning support for Israel
TO walk around Berlin is to experience something no other capital city offers: a physical landscape that forces one to dwell on the crimes of its former occupants. The haunting Monument to the Murdered Jews of Europe sits near the seats of German power in the Reichstag and chancellery. Every neighbourhood is littered with Stolpersteine, small brass plates bearing the names and fates of Holocaust victims set in the pavements outside their former homes. These and a thousand other memorials and rituals are expressions of Germany’s Erinnerungskultur, a “memory culture” built up over decades.
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This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline “Stumbling over the past”
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