
My latest review in the Forward.
A strange three-act drama is played out here in Germany with unsettling regularity.
Some public figure — usually a politician — will make a comparison between the present-day and Nazi Germany. I’ll grab the first example that comes to mind. Last year, a week before the 70th anniversary of Kristallnacht, a well-known German economist from Munich, Hans-Werner Sinn, made the mistake of comparing the scapegoating of bank managers for the unfolding financial crisis to the treatment of Jews in 1930s Germany. “Back then, it hit the Jews in Germany; today, it’s the managers,” he said. “In every crisis, people look for culprits, for someone to blame.” Act Two quickly commenced: contrition. This act usually stars the leadership of the German-Jewish community, whose job description, as far as I can tell, mostly involves being an address for apologies for idiotic Nazi comparisons made by otherwise unassuming Germans. “I apologize to the Jewish community and take back the comparison,” Sinn announced. The final act is the national conversation, which lasts roughly a week. Talk shows and magazines feature round-table discussions about the state of antisemitism and the politics of memory. And then it’s over, to be repeated next time someone inadvertently sticks a swastika in his mouth.
It can be an absurd spectacle. But maybe that’s why I laughed so much — an uncomfortable giggle at first, which ripened into something louder — when an oafish, red-bearded German apologized to me from the stage the other night in the first moments of a new play, “Third Generation,” now in performance at Berlin’s famed Schaubühne (in German, English, Hebrew and Arabic, with English supertitles). Niels, as he introduced himself, just wanted to have a word with us before the show started. “Are there any Jews out there?” he asked in German. A few sheepishly raised their hands. “In the name of the German people,” he said, hand over heart, “I apologize.” He was only getting started. “Any gypsies in the audience?” No one responded. “Well, they must be on the way.” More nervous giggles. Homosexuals? Sorry. How about Turkish emigrants? He felt terrible for how the government had treated them in the 1990s. As he apologized, the rest of the cast — which, we already know from the program, consisted of an equal number of Israelis, Germans and Palestinians — made its way onto the bare stage behind him. “Oh, here’s Ishay,” Niels said suddenly, turning to one of the Israeli actors. “To you, Ishay, I would like to personally apologize. Your grandfather was electrocuted on the gate of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. My apologies. I’m very sorry.” Ishay emitted an awkward, “Forget about it!” and a relieved smile spread across Niels’s face. “If only it was always so easy,” he told the now hysterical audience.
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