Germany’s Lesson for America

Twelve years ago, a young German Christian woman sought my assistance in converting to Judaism. As I listened to her reasons for wishing to become Jewish — her marriage to a Jewish man, her partnership in raising a Jewish daughter, her affection for the customs and traditions of Judaism — I could see tears welling in her eyes.

When I inquired about those tears, the dam burst, and she began to weep openly.

“My marriage and family are inspiring me to convert,” she told me, “but my history stands in my way. How can I ever become a Jew, after the horrors my people brought upon the Jews? How can I ever be forgiven? I can’t even forgive myself.”

“But you weren’t even born until two decades after World War II had ended. You hold no guilt for the Nazi atrocities,” I countered.

“But I feel such terrible guilt,” she lamented. “So many young Germans do. We carry the shame of being descendants of those crimes.”

I found her suffering to be at once heartbreaking and puzzling — until earlier this month, when I visited Berlin and Dresden with the North American Board of Rabbis at the invitation of the German government. We were welcomed for Germany’s national observance of the 80th anniversary of Kristallnacht, the state-sponsored “Night of Broken Glass,” which ultimately led to the murders of 6 million Jews.

Days before the commemoration, we paid a visit to the Evangelisches Kreuzgymnasium in Dresden, where hundreds of Christian high schoolers packed an auditorium to hear our stories and share their statements of commitment to combat anti-Semitism. The sincerity in their presentations and the heart-heavy sense of duty in their questions moved us deeply. Clearly, these teenagers carry their own shame from being descendants of Nazi crimes — but also a robust resolve to write a different story for Germany’s future.

Their determination is going to be sorely needed as the incitement to violence against Jews, both among German nationalists and some segments of Germany’s Arab immigrant population, continues to ritse. German Chancellor Angela Merkel soberly noted in her remarks at Berlin’s beautiful Rykestrasse Synagogue, “There are two urgent questions that we need to answer. First, what did we really learn from the Shoah, this rupture of civilization? And second, to the first question: Are our democratic institutions sufficiently strong so that amid an increase of anti-Semitism, or even if a majority presents anti-Semitism, it can be prevented in the future?”

To be sure, Germany faces a daunting challenge, as the right-wing nationalist Alternative for Germany (AfD) Party continues its political ascent, fomenting hatred directed at Jews and other minorities. Surely, however, Germany’s leaders and citizens will be strengthened in their effort to repel this darkness by their unequivocal national reckoning with their past. A nation that names and acknowledges its greatest moral failures must certainly be less likely to repeat them. When the seedlings of those same evil impulses are replanted generations later, a people guided by responsibility for its history is best poised to deny those seedlings any water or sunlight.

As a Jewish American blessed with freedoms and opportunities my family first discovered as Eastern European immigrants generations ago, I find myself wondering about the implications of what I observed in Germany for my own country. After all, Kristallnacht happened 80 years ago, and yet it remains a persistent subject in German schools, as well as a cause for national events of accountability, long after the perpetrators of its crimes have died.

How might the United States meet its moment of moral challenge today if our nation were to engage habitually in acts of collective responsibility for our past, as Germany does?

How might our national soul be impacted if our country’s brutal dispossession of Native Americans was regularly and solemnly commemorated?

How might our treatment of endangered immigrant populations be altered if we were consistently reminded of the moral degradation of the Japanese-American internment camps during World War II?

How might the plight of African-Americans on our streets and in our courts be aided by a sincere acknowledgment of accountability for the slave ships that brought the ancestors of many millions of our modern-day citizens to the United States in chains?

The still-piercing shame from the Holocaust felt by many in Germany today should be seen as neither heartbreaking nor puzzling. Rather, it is a badge of enduring conscience that just may save today’s German Jews from the same hatred that engulfed the Jews 80 years ago. Might we, as Americans, draw upon our shared history to steer clear of repeating our collective past sins?

The great 20th-century rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel famously taught: “Some are guilty. All are responsible.” There is nothing wrong with feeling the weight of responsibility for our national past. It is noble and just to feel responsible. It’s what enables us to become the best people we can be. It is also what enables us to become the best nation we can be.

Rabbi Ken Chasen is Senior Rabbi of Leo Baeck Temple and vice chair of T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights.