From the very moment of the liberation of camps at Auschwitz, Belsen and Buchenwald, Germans have been held accountable for the crimes committed in the Holocaust. The Nazi regime unleashed the most systematic attempt in history to wipe out an entire people, murdering men, women and children for the simple 'crime' of being Jewish. After the war ended in 1945, the Jewish State of Israel was created and Jewish communities were re-established in a now divided Germany. Germans have engaged actively with their Nazi legacy and the Jewish communities have remained and grown stronger, but neo-Nazism has also persisted. Young Germans have learned the horrific deeds of the past at school, and throughout the world, people of all nations have tried to learn the lesson 'never again', while Germany has become 'Israel's best friend in Europe'.Pól Ó Dochartaigh analyses the ways in which Germans and Jews alike have attempted to come to terms with the Holocaust and its terrible legacy. He also looks at efforts to remember – and to forget – the Holocaust, movement towards recompense and reparation, and the survival of anti-Semitism.
Pól Ó Dochartaigh is Registrar and Deputy President of the National University of Ireland, Galway, and was previously Professor of German and Dean of Arts at the University of Ulster, Coleraine, Northern Ireland.
AcknowledgementsForeword1. The Pity and Stupidity of it all: Jews in Germany before 1945PART I: GERMANS AND JEWS 1945-19902. Survivors on Blood-Soaked Soil (1945-49)3. Jews and West Germany I (1949-67)4. The GDR and its Jews I (1949-67)5. Jews and West Germany II (1967-89)6. The GDR and its Jews II (1967-89)7. Jews and German Unification (1989-90)8. Germany and Israel (1949-90)PART II: GERMAN-JEWISH THEMES9. Reparations and International Jewish Organisations10. Historians and the Holocaust11. Jews and German CulturePART III: GERMANS AND JEWS SINCE 199012. The Growth of Judaism in Germany since 199013. Anti-Semitism and Neo-Nazism since 199014. Germany and Israel since 1990Conclusion: No Normality.