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memory of the Holocaust appeared to grow even stronger. In 1995, the
parliament agreed to support a proposal initiated by Ignatz Bubis, the
President of the Central Council ofJews in Germany, to make January 27,
the day of the liberation of Auschwitz by the Red Army, a day of remem–
brance for the victims of National Socialism. Roman Herzog, who entered
the office of the Federal Presidency, urged his fellow Germans to be "less
uptight" about the past. In fact, he delivered speeches that echoed Heuss's
and von Weizsacker's themes. German publishers brought out books deal–
ing with the Holocaust and Jewish history. Claims for restitution for stolen
art and slave labor, revelations of the role of German banks in financing the
construction of death camps, and the "Nazi gold" investi gation by the
American government kept issues of the Holocaust in the press. While the
radical right captured national and international headlines, the Social
Democrats and Greens made steady progress in state elections.
The most important non-governmental initiative of the 1990s, and
that which has made the Holocaust memory an issue the entire national
political establishment has to face, has been the effort to build a memorial
to Europe's murdered Jews. Since 1988, when the television journalist Lea
Rosh and the historian Eberhard Jaeckel first proposed such a memorial
for Berlin, the issue has been a subject of extensive public debate. A collo–
quium was held in which politicians, historians, architects, artists, and
public intellectuals actively partici pated; in two international competi tions,
a jury of experts chose a proposal by the American architect Peter
Eisenman and the sculptor Richard Serra. Supporters of such a memorial
argued that it was necessary to mourn the dead properly, to draw attention
to the genocide of European Jewry in Nazi policy and break with vague
generalizations about "victims of fascism" or of the Second World War,
and to recall that the Holocaust had been directed from the government
offices in Berlin. Following unification, they added that it was all the more
important that the new, unified Germany demonstrate its fidelity to the
best traditions of the Federal Republic. They argued that existing concen–
tration camp memorials within Germany were not adequate substitutes
because camps were not where the mass murder of European Jewry had
taken place. They were comfortably out of sight and mind in Berlin, and
thus would be ignored by visitors to the capital. The movement of the
German government from Bonn to BerEn should not be accompanied by
yet another era of amnesia. Therefore, placing a memorial to the murdered
Jews in the very center of Berlin would be both an act of mourning and a
recognition of the role that memory of the Holocaust should play in rein–
forcing support for human rights. In the longer perspective, such a
memorial would represent a continuation of Heuss's and Schumacher's
efforts to associate patriotism and national honor with the courage to face
