How have the memories of the Holocaust changed in Germany over the years?
When I came back to Germany for the first time in 1953, the country was traumatized by the past. Germans didn’t want to and couldn’t talk about it. There were still many Nazis, even in important positions. The people felt guilty but weren’t able to express this guilt. Everyone was working on rebuilding the country. The younger generation of the 1970’s changed this a little. Today, I am satisfied with how honestly Germans try to deal with the past, and try, as far as they can, to bear the consequences. What do you think was the meaning of the end of World War II for German-Jewish history? That was the end of German Jewry as it had been known in the decades and centuries before. The German-Jews that I knew as a child, and those of my parents’, grandparents’ and great-grandparents’ generation were a real community inside German society and after the war, that was over. What meaning does the end of the war have for Jews outside of Germany who were not directly affected? I think that left a
