'Never Again!': Holocaust remembrance under pressure
Only a few Holocaust survivors remain who can share their stories firsthand. Meanwhile, voices calling for an end to what they describe as a "cult of guilt" are growing louder. How can Holocaust remembrance survive?
Holocaust remembrance is increasingly under threat, according to Jens-Christian Wagner, director of the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation. Young people visiting memorial sites have been seen breaking taboos, posing for photos in crematorium ovens and giving Nazi salutes. Wagner describes such incidents as despicable, stating they ultimately kill the victims a second time.
Holocaust remembrance is facing pressure due to right-wing populism and historical revisionism, and the future of democracy could be at stake. With no Holocaust survivors left to tell their stories, Wagner hopes the new exhibition in Bonn will encourage people to confront Nazi crimes. Memorial sites attract visitors, many of whom are students who may feel the Nazi era is distant and thus emotionally burdensome.
Instead of lectures, Buchenwald offers full-day programs to help students explore historical sources and draw connections between the past and current events such as migration. Eva Umlauf, who survived the Holocaust as a child, shares her experiences and urges people not to forgive the perpetrators. Despite the horrors she endured, she refuses to hate Germans, but she cannot forgive the deaths of 6 million people.
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