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THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Editorials/Op-Ed

German history after the HolocaustBy Suzanne Fields
December 14, 2006

BERLIN. -- A choir from a suburban Chicago high school came to the Jewish Museum in Berlin not long ago to sing in commemoration of the 68th anniversary of Kristallnacht (.....).

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The German hosts described the occasion as "sensitive and evocative," but one of them told the American teacher who accompanied the choir that it was too bad that the kids hadn't taken note of another important anniversary that fell on the anniversary of Kristallnacht. Nov. 9-10 marked the 17th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The visiting teacher conceded ruefully that he had been unaware of all that.

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These bright and earnest Americans had studied minute details of anti-Semitism in Germany during the decades of the '30s and '40s, but were ignorant of the history of Germany in the years after the war, of the yearning for freedom that led ordinary people to confront Communist tyranny and that eventually led to the tumbling of the wall.

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In trendy post-modern intellectual circles, German "culture" in its broadest sense is portrayed as a substitute for politics. But these museums make clear that German culture, past and present, whether creative or coercive, passionate or passive, permissive or doctrinaire, liberal or conservative, is always political with a strong cultural impact, sometimes for better and often for worse. American teen-agers won't want to sing about that, but they ought to understand its importance.