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How Germany's Holocaust remembrance culture kicked off a democratic crisis

JL;DR SUMMARY Walking through Weimar, Germany, exemplifies the nation's Erinnerungskultur, or memory culture, which centers on commemorating Holocaust victims through Stolpersteine and other memorials. A way out west there was a fella, fella I want to tell you about, fella by the name of Jeff Lebowski. At least, that was the handle his lovin' parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. This Lebowski, he called himself the Dude. Now, Dude, that's a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then, there was a lot about the Dude that didn't make a whole lot of sense to me. And a lot about where he lived, likewise. But then again, maybe that's why I found the place s'durned innarestin'.

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Tags

Jewish HistoryDemocracyGermanyHolocaust RemembranceRight Wing PoliticsMemory CultureAfdAlan BernErinnerungskultur

Places mentioned

Weimar, Thuringia, Germany
"Walking through Weimar, Germany, the legacy of the Holocaust seems inescapable."
Berlin, Germany
"a sign outside of the Wittenbergplatz U-Bahn station in Berlin lists the names of concentration camps"
Nordhausen, Thuringia, Germany
"When an AfD member ran for mayor of Nordhausen, a city in Thuringia, in 2023, the Memorials official social media pages called him out online for dog whistling to right-wing extremists, invoking a false Holocaust-distorting conspiracy theory."
Frankfurt am Main, Hesse, Germany
"Immediately after Oct. 7, Wieland Hoban, a Jewish German living in Frankfurt am Main, began demonstrating against Germanys support for Israel, and was arrested multiple times - the first time for wearing a shirt displaying a revolutionary fist logo, which is associated with the pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel organization Samidoun that was banned in Germany a few days following the attack."
Warsaw, Mazovia, Poland
"At the end of World War II, fewer than 15,000 Jews remained in Germany, the majority of whom went to West Germany when the country was partitioned after World War II. West Germany largely avoided accepting responsibility for the Holocaust until 1970, when Chancellor Willy Brandt visited the Warsaw Ghetto, in Poland, and laid a wreath at its memorial."

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