On Thursday we started the day off at the Germany Close Up office where we were given an introduction to the nonprofit organization Action Reconciliation Service for Peace (ARSP), one of Germany Close Up’s partner organizations that mobilizes young Germans in peace-oriented, anti-racist service. The organization was founded in 1958 to address and ameliorate the damage of WWII, appealing to fellow Germans: “Those of us who survived and did not want [the Shoah] to happen did not do enough to prevent it.” It is difficult enough to take responsibility for outcomes directly tied to your actions – ARSP creates a space for those indirectly involved to productively grapple with Germany’s violent past.
Thinking about the atrocities that have been (and are) committed in my name or for my benefit as a white American woman, I find ARSP’s drive to address and take responsibility for the terrible things that happened in their country remarkable. How can/does one negotiate the relationship between personal responsibility and systemic oppression? While neither my family nor I were personally involved in the Transatlantic Slave Trade, today I benefit both from the insidious ideology of white supremacy and the wealth generated from the exploitation of Black people in the U.S. I attended a prestigious university whose early financial viability was predicated on slave labor. My access to that institution in the first place is tied to my family’s class status and my educational opportunities, both of which are inextricable from my whiteness (and whiteness is inextricable from blackness). I am not responsible for slavery, but I’ve reaped benefits from the institution and its attendant ideologies my whole life. So, where does that leave me in relation to black America or even individual black Americans? I feel a sense of responsibility to dismantle white supremacy, but it is often the case that my privilege allows me to isolate myself from oppression and ignore the urgency of working towards racial justice. I admire the young Germans who have chosen to put themselves in the uncomfortable position of atoning for past sins committed in their name. Inspired by their example, I have begun to think about what anti-racist work I can undertake in my home communities.
After discussing ARSP, we visited Germany’s Foreign Office, which, we’re told, is comparable to our State Department. We entered a modern-looking building with lots of glass punctuated by vertical lines and dispersed through a high-ceilinged lobby with potted plants and a small café. We regrouped to file through metal detectors and a passport check. We were led into a conference room dominated by a glossy wood table, which formed the perimeter of a square, a shape echoed by a square chandelier. We met with a very tall, handsome diplomat with little of substance to say. He was articulate in his deflections, honest about the limits of his knowledge, and eager to emphasize the crucial nature of Germany’s relationship with both the U.S. and Israel.
Later, we walked through the deserted halls of the German parliament’s office building to meet with Green Party Parliamentarian Konstantin van Nost who took time to meet with us during the Parliament’s summer recess. Sitting in a ground level conference room in a building also made largely of glass and steel, MP van Notz took our questions about Germany’s pressing political issues. The Refugee Crisis and national security dominated the conversation, and while there were perhaps not knowable empirical answers to our questions, MP van Notz was forthcoming with his own opinion and appreciative of nuance.
I was confronted with my own sense of disillusionment throughout the day – I often feel dwarfed by “the issues,” and trapped by my own inherently limited perspective; this sometimes makes me want to retreat from public life. This desire to avoid only further complicates my attempts to develop a sense of personal responsibility in relation to world tragedies. I thought of a story we’d been told about a former ARSP volunteer who was once asked by a grade school student, “What would you have done during World War II?” The volunteer replied that while that’s an interesting question, its answer is ultimately unknowable. “What I’m doing now is more important,” she concluded.
What am I doing now? Which of the multitudes of conflict and suffering do I deem urgent enough to warrant personal action? Which of them do I feel even indirectly responsible for, and which feel actionable? What if I take an honest look at my life and I see I’m really not doing much to help marginalized people? Does that change my position in studying and remembering the Shoah? How many of us feel in-group solidarity when we learn about the Shoah but fail to realize that the roles of victim, perpetrator, and bystander change across time and space and that our past as victims does not preclude us from acting as perpetrators or bystanders in other situations?