Auschwitz is
Part of the German Identity - for Immigrants as Well (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Germany)
"What's
necessary is a common consensus on the most important value of the community, which
is at the heart of [Germany's] Basic Law: human dignity. Anyone who wants to
understand why that is the highest legal value of our Constitution, what this
term really means and the obligations that come with it, has to study the past.
That includes not only studying Auschwitz, but enlightening others about it as well. Neither should be overlooked in courses on integrating new citizens and residents."
If you want to
understand why human dignity is our most important right, you have to learn
about German history. You must learn about Auschwitz - but also about informing
and educating others. During integration courses for new citizens and
residents, neither chapter should be left out.
The core message of President Gauck's
speech on the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration
camp will meet with widespread approval – but also rejection, and not just from
Holocaust deniers and extremists of every kind. Because in every civilized
individual there must be something that refuses to accept as a part of his or
her national identity a crime like the industrial genocide of European Jews.
Nonetheless, it is part of our identity. Today’s Germany was built on the ruins
of Auschwitz – obligated as a free and democratic society dedicated to the
protection of human rights and an antidote to Hitler’s dictatorship and his
Master Race. Even today, Germany's domestic and foreign policy cannot be fully
understood without knowledge of the darkest twelve years in German history and
the lessons learned from them after the war.
Posted By Worldmeets.US
As a former German president may have said, Auschwitz also undoubtedly
also belongs to Germany. But what about immigrants? With
even less reason to feel responsibility or even guilt as Germans born after the
war, need they share this view? Are people German only if they accept Auschwitz
(and the obligations that entails) as part of their new German identity? For a
growing number of young Muslims, it appears that anti-Semitism is more of a
contributing factor to their feelings of national identity. To combat this form
of "Islamization" in Germany, all
democratic forces must be employed
Days of observance, as Gauck said
in the Bundestag, unite a society in reflection about its common history. This
reflection does not always lead, as the many debates on Germany’s past have
shown, to greater commonality. That is neither possible nor necessary in an
open society. What's necessary is a common consensus on the most important
value of the community, which is at the heart of [Germany's] Basic
Law: human dignity. Anyone who wants to understand why that is the highest
legal value of our Constitution, what this term really means and the
obligations that come with it, has to study the past. That includes not only studying Auschwitz, but enlightening others about it as well. Neither should be overlooked in courses on integrating new citizens and residents.
*Berthold Kohler was born in 1961 in Upper
Franconia Marktredwitz. After military service, he studied
political science at the University of Bamberg and the London School of
Economics. After an internship at the Frankfurter AllgemeineZeitung, he joined the political section in 1989 and
was sent as a correspondent to Prague in the early 1990’s. From there, and
later from Vienna, he reported on Central and Eastern European countries.
