Shifting Structures for Social Cohesion
How Local Organizations Create Inclusive Communities The AGI project on “Social Divisions and Questions of Identity in Germany and the United States” brought together a diverse group of participants to …
The Entertainer: Mark Newton’s Raison d’être
When the door opens at Mark Newton’s condominium in Yardley, Pennsylvania, it is as if a curtain has been drawn back from the stage. One is immediately met with movie …
What is Angela Merkel’s Legacy for German Memory Culture?
AGI Asks: How has Angela Merkel contributed to Germany’s culture of remembrance and influenced memory politics? Lily Gardner Feldman AGI Senior Fellow All German post-war chancellors have been committed to …
On the Passing of a German Generation
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my “Nazi aunt” (actually a great aunt) as I called her. Born a century ago in 1920 in northern Bavaria, Leni was a …
Auschwitz is a Warning: Comments on the Seventy-Fifth Anniversary of the Arrival of the Red Army at Auschwitz-Birkenau
I want to discuss three points regarding Auschwitz and Holocaust Memory Today. First, despite a massive scholarship on the subject, knowledge in the public and in the world of policy …
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Auschwitz: History and Icon
Auschwitz has become an icon of other-worldly evil, rightly signifying a crime like no other. That monstrous camp of gas chambers and crematoria, however, is also a distinctly human creation …
The Federal Republic’s Political and Societal Responses to Auschwitz
To stand here today and address you as Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany is far from easy. I am filled with a deep shame at the barbaric crimes …
Keeping History Alive: 75 Years after the Liberation of Auschwitz
One of the negative icons of the twentieth century was the Holocaust—the Nazi German persecution and murder of approximately 6 million Jewish people in Europe during World War II from …
The 100th Anniversary of the Treaty of Versailles
Among the many important dates that we largely overlooked is the 100th anniversary of the Treaty of Versailles, the treaty that ended the state of war between Germany and the …
Hidden in Plain Sight: The Life and Message of Raymonde Fiol
A Call from the Past It was a Saturday in 2007. Raymonde Fiol was sitting on a sofa in her home in Las Vegas. The phone rang. She answered. The …
The Afghanistan War: Collective Memory Formation in the United States and Germany
More than eighteen years have passed since October 2001, when U.S. forces were deployed to Afghanistan after the Taliban regime refused to extradite Osama bin Laden and shut down Al-Qaeda …
The Unbroken Past: From Germany to Shanghai to San Francisco
Kurt and Jeannette Nothenberg lived comfortably in the middle class in Germany raising their only child, Rudy. Following Kristallnacht, Kurt was arrested and sent to Buchenwald, but was later released …
The Fall of the Wall as a Memory of Joy
Few countries have had to grapple with such a complex historical legacy as Germany. Among the many challenging issues arising from this past has the been the dynamic between appropriately …
On the Halle Synagogue Attacks
Everyone in the AGI community grieves and condemns the right-radical, anti-Semitic terrorist incident that occurred on Yom Kippur, Wednesday, October 9, 2019, in the city of Halle. By now, the …
