Ambiguous Relations by Shlomo Shafir

Author:Shlomo Shafir [Shafir, Shlomo]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Jewish, Social Science, Jewish Studies
ISBN: 9780814345078
Google: PGlwDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Wayne State University Press
Published: 2018-02-05T04:21:18+00:00

15

The Growth of Holocaust Consciousness and Its Impact on American Jewish–German Relations

For thirteen years, from October 1969 until September 1982, the left-of-center coalition led by the Social Democrats held power in West Germany, even though its reformist zeal was blocked by a renascent conservative trend in German society in the late 1970s. In 1982, Chancellor Schmidt’s last cabinet was replaced by the right-of-center coalition of CDU leader Helmut Kohl, who in fall 1996 already had remained in power longer than any other German head of government since Otto von Bismarck. In Israel, the Labor party’s long hegemony since its creation in 1948 was interrupted between 1977 and 1992 by either Likud-led or national unity governments dependent on the Likud. In 1996, after an interval of four years, Labor was again relegated by the voters into opposition.

There were ups and downs in American Jewish–German relations during these two decades. But in addition to German and Israeli political changes, the growth of Holocaust consciousness in American Jewish life added another polarizing dimension to that already complex relationship. Still, it did not prevent the establishment and broadening of a variety of American Jewish and German exchange programs from the early 1980s. At least until the Bitburg imbroglio in 1985, the increasing Holocaust consciousness was not connected to any major happening on the West German scene. Instead, that awareness resulted from the accumulating impact of the Eichmann trial, the struggle against the enactment of the statute of limitations, American Jewish concern for Israel’s safety during the wars of 1967 and 1973, and the generational change in the community. It also coincided, after the optimism of the halcyon days up to the mid-1960s, with the reappearance of antisemitic manifestations at home as well as abroad, which made American Jews temporarily more conscious not only of the similarity but also of the differences between themselves and other Americans.

After V-E Day and the liberation of the concentration and slave labor camps, the safety and well-being of the few survivors and of the larger number of refugees who assembled in the American occupation zones of Germany and Austria had become American Jewry’s most urgent concern. Even though the latter welcomed the exposure of Nazi atrocities and the sentences passed upon their perpetrators by the Nuremberg IMT, the destruction of European Jewry had not been central to the deliberations of that court. Because of the Cold War and the American national interest in incorporating the only perfunctorily denazified West German state in the Western camp, the Jewish community had to adjust to the new situation. While Jews did not forget, they at least took advantage of Adenauer Germany’s interest in gaining acceptance by American public opinion in their efforts to obtain restitution and indemnification for the victims, and shilumim for Israel and the Claims Conference. In 1957, in an often quoted remark, sociologist Nathan Glazer wondered why American Jews were not interested in the two main events in recent Jewish history: the Holocaust and the creation of the State of Israel.

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