Manuel Schwab, Los Angeles Times:

From subjecting the legacies of their own perpetration to scrutiny, German political institutions are increasingly directing scrutiny at others, framing antisemitism as a problem to be called out in others. If the optics here do not inspire a deep sense of unease, perhaps it is we who have not grasped the basic lessons of German history.

I have spent much of my scholarly career working in countries where the naming of ethnic cleansing, apartheid and genocide are fiercely debated as political violence rolls on unchecked. I am no stranger to the fact that, as the often-abused turn of phrase goes, “it’s complicated.” But the current situation in Germany makes a few things painfully clear. Public memory — the way pasts are kept as common parts of our shared social fabric — is a critical resource without which the very idea of a shared humanity is inconceivable.

Public memory, as such, can never be owned. The profound intergenerational grief that comes in the wake of historical traumas is a painful legacy, but a conversation about the contemporary meaning of that legacy cannot be avoided if “never again” is to remain a political ethic responsive to our present.