According to a study by the Bertelsmann Foundation, half of Germans want to “draw a line under the past” of the millions of Jews murdered by Nazi Germany. This is the wrong way of dealing with our responsibility before history.
Taking responsibility doesn’t mean that you have to feel bad throughout your life. Responsibility means working for a free, tolerant, cosmopolitan society that will make such crimes impossible in the future.
For the Israelis, whose relatives were murdered by the hundreds of thousands, it is impossible to draw a line under the past. The memory of their families accompanies them throughout their lives. You can feel that when you visit the country, talk to young Israelis, who meet us, the descendants of the generation of perpetrators, with open arms and friendly eyes. But while 42 percent of the Israelis surveyed for the study have already visited Germany, 93 percent of Germans have never been to the Jewish state.
That should change. Dialogue and personal contacts are the best preventive measures against anti-Semitism. Then we don’t have to draw a line under the past. Because we can create a better future together.
