Deborah Feldman, the Author of 'Unorthodox,' Touches a Nerve in Germany - The New York ... - 0 views
www.nytimes.com/...eldman-unorthodox-germany.html
author germany Berlin cultural diversity capital controversy holocaust
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What I really think has happened here is that memory culture has produced two warring phenomena.
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It produced a society that is paralyzed by guilt and discomfort. Germany doesn’t have emotional space and energy for any other historical responsibility other than the reality that it perpetrated the Holocaust.
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at the same time, official memory culture created an unchecked arena for politicians to abuse that history. These politicians don’t reflect the views of society, but they don’t feel the need to, because they’ve created a culture in which society doesn’t have a say in this issue. And it is so sad that the Jewish people have such diverse cultural, ethnic and religious identities, but in Germany they have to subsume it into the identity of the Holocaust victim.
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Documenta was a very big moment for artists on this issue. Everyone started getting very afraid. What we’ve been experiencing is a gap between the cultural establishment and the political structures that fund the culture scene.
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friends with an immigrant background. My whole community was just paralyzed by fear and hopelessness and this feeling of being humiliated, denigrated, dehumanized.
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I have lost my faith in German media. I never had faith in German politics, but now I really have no hope for German politics. Honestly, I think what I still feel connected to are the people who tell me privately: “I agree with you, but if I say it, I lose my job.”