Germany’s Failed Remembrance Culture: When ‘Never Again’ Became a Political Slogan

Books like Susan Neiman’s Learning from the Germans: Race and the Memory of Evil ...have praised German society as a model for confronting historical evil. Neiman’s thesis was straightforward: unlike America (especially the South), Germany had achieved an honest reckoning with its racist past, creating a more just, diverse present. Recent years have shattered this rosy view. As Germany becomes a country where Jews increasingly cannot live openly and safely, the failure of its remembrance culture has become undeniable... The failure... manifests most starkly in rising historical ignorance among young Germans. A Jewish Claims Conference survey earlier this year revealed...