FORMER WEST GERMANS AND THEIR PAST
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today, even though they may no longer have the influence they once
had. Up to a few years ago, working educationally and politically to
ensure that Auschwitz could never happen again was the creed that con–
stituted the moral fiber of the old Federal Republic.
Many of today's Germans have memories of the Nazi era, although
these may be the product of history lessons rather than personal experi–
ence. But they tend to avoid confronting emotions and modes of behav–
ior prevalent in that period, experiencing these as a source of embarrass–
ment, even though it was their parents and grandparents and not they
themselves who were directly involved. Thus, they fail to perceive how
old, dormant attitudes and projections repeat themselves in the uncaring
indifference and lack of sympathy for foreigners and asylum-seekers. They
are only too ready to forget that the Berlin Wall was a result of World
War II and the Cold War. They have forgotten too why many people
inside and outside the German Democratic Republic (GDR) placed their
hopes in "socialism with a human face," seeing in it a campaign for
greater human solidarity and a weapon against fascism. They have for–
gotten why so many Germans in the former GDR played an active role
in the perversion of that vision. This refusal to recall feelings and atti–
tudes also makes us incapable of understanding and sympathy.
We fend off the memory of the inhuman sufferings undergone by the
millions of victims because to this day Nazi Germany's mass extermina–
tion drive fills us not only with shame but also - if we allow these feel–
ings to assert themselves - with immeasurable horror; and it represents a
massive assault on our self-respect as Germans.
Our refusal to face our feelings of guilt does not allow us to em–
pathize with the victims of the Nazi horrors. There is little general
awareness of how differently the memories of criminals and their victims
actually work. Not only do they remember differently, they also remem–
ber different things.
In
the same way, the descendants of Nazi criminals
have different memories from those recalled by the first and second gen–
eration of victims. Many of the latter still suffer from the memory of life
under constant threat, of destruction and humiliation.
In
a number of
cases this fear and its psychological effects have poisoned their entire lives.
The fate and history of Israel is still influenced to a high degree by the
memories of the Holocaust.
For the perpetrators and passive condoners of Nazi crimes it is much
easier to forget: they were not exposed to the machinery of annihilation
and the feelings of impotence and helplessness in the face of it. The same
is true of their children and grandchildren. They suffer instead from the
consequences of their parents' and grandparents' disavowed guilt. They
unconsciously take this guilt upon themselves and at the same time react
