Dear Readers,

For many this may have seemed like an obvious choice. After all, the meeting on 20 January 1942, which became known as the Wannsee Conference, dealt with the organization and implementation of the mass murder of European Jews, which was referred to and trivialized at the time as the “Final Solution.”

But was the issue of antisemitism really such an obvious choice? Is everyone truly aware of the central role that antisemitic thought and action played in this “administrative mass murder” or do we perhaps continue to be deceived by the bureaucratic vernacular of the National Socialists, which allows the antisemitic motives to disappear along with the people who were directly affected by “eliminatory antisemitism”?

We must continue to recognize the significance and function of antisemitism from a historical perspective, particularly when examining more closely the different groups persecuted by the Nazis, including Sinti and Roma, queer people and those with disabilities; we must begin to understand antisemitism as an intersectionally entangled phenomena as well as a synthesizing component of systematic misanthropy. All of this challenges us and our visitors to adopt new perspectives while continuing to view our previous perceptions critically – not an easy task for historians and other experts in the field.

Our annual theme is also very timely. It is common knowledge that antisemitism did not disappear after 1945. What is disturbing, however, are the many different manifestations of antisemitism that exist within society today. We see it being welcomed, treated lightly and denied, and this not only by the extreme right, which includes the AfD party, whose leaders have described Nazi crimes as a mere speck of “bird poop” in German history. Furthermore, they have demanded a “180-degree shift in remembrance policy,” and encouraged extermination fantasies against the EU.

Despite this, memorial sites and other institutions involved in history and civic education often have difficulty focusing on contemporary antisemitism. One reason for this is that it frequently goes unnoticed, in part because we cannot or do not wish to deal with our own role in reproducing structurally antisemitic ideas and images.

Having selected antisemitism as this year’s focus, we have sought to address it in multiple ways, both internally and externally. This newsletter thus also touches on aspects of this topic, sometimes explicitly and other times indirectly. Historical perspectives can be found in Martin Cüpper’s essay on the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. In his article, which marks the 80^th anniversary of the uprising, Cüppers analyzes and contextualizes the final report written by the commanding SS and police leader Jürgen Stroop. In many ways this report shaped the visual memory of the uprising, in part because so few images exist that convey the perspective of the people who participated in the event. The photo, for example, of a boy with raised arms standing alongside women and children being held at gunpoint by German men in uniform is an iconic image. Long removed from its historical context, it has come to serve as a universal icon for the horror of war and terror against civilians. In current conflicts, the image is frequently used as a visual analogy, for instance in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, where it has been invoked to brand Israel as a Nazi revenant.

These uses make historical contextualization and close readings of historical sources all the more important. Cüppers also analyzes the report in terms of antisemitism and the function it played in Nazi ideology and everyday life under National Socialism. He writes, “It is therefore necessary to take seriously the fact that murderous hatred of Jews not only functioned as a central element of Nazi ideology and incessantly repeated propaganda, but also determined the thinking and actions of many Germans.”

That these understandings are still up for discussion is demonstrated by the repeated attempts to rewrite the history of National Socialism, and the Shoah in particular. Ruth Preusse analyzes a well-known case that was not recognized as an example of historical falsification and Holocaust denial for many years. By showing how modified passages from the Wannsee Conference protocol were presented as Hitler's fictional “self-disclosures,” Preusse demonstrates that the forged Hitler diaries created 40 years ago were a clear attempt to rewrite history.

In our interview with Winfrid Wenzel, who was appointed antisemitism commissioner for the Berlin police in 2022, we also focus on how antisemitism continues to persist. Wenzel discusses his work and explains how the police record antisemitic crimes. During the interview, we also inquire into whether the police is sufficiently critically aware of antisemitism and how it handles manifestations within its own ranks.

The two conferences we hosted in May of this year also provided an opportunity to discuss various forms of contemporary antisemitism from a social perspective and as an issue within historical-political education. The symposium “Thinking with Algorithms?” addressed the problem of online antisemitism and considered strategies to prevent hate speech and its algorithmic amplification. The Federal Ministry of Justice, by cutting its funding to HateAid, an organization that supports counselling against online hate and presented its socially important work at our symposium, is sending the wrong message.

The conference “Covered by Artistic Freedom? Current Challenges in Dealing with Antisemitism in Art and Culture” served to critically reflect on current debates such as the recent one concerning antisemitic art at documenta 15. Importantly, it provided a platform for the experiences of people who were affected and also provided opportunities for critical self-reflection and mutual exchange.

In January, on the 81st anniversary of the Wannsee Conference, we focused on the topic of the resistance and self-assertion of Jews in the face of the Shoah to address the experience of antisemitism and to place individual as well as collective strategies of action against antisemitic persecution in historical context.

This issue of our newsletter continues these discussions while simultaneously expanding on them to include current and historical perspectives.

As always, we welcome your feedback.

Best,

Deborah Hartmann