I.

IN 2010 HISTORIAN ULRIKE JUREIT and psychoanalytically trained sociologist Christian Schneider launched a head-on critique of contemporary practices of Holocaust memorialization in Germany. As the title of their book—Gefühlte Opfer: Illusionen der Vergangenheitsbewältigung—indicates, they chastise what they perceive as German illusions of coming to terms with the past. In accordance with a widely shared opinion, they do not reproach the Germans for a lack of commemoration. It is, curiously enough, rather the ubiquitousness of Holocaust memory, in conjunction with the way in which the Germans nowadays commemorate the murdered Jews, that the authors find problematic. Their findings suggest an overwhelming trend toward identifying with the victims. They claim that for German practices of commemoration, “die Figur des ge fühlten Opfers” (the figure of the felt victim) proves to be “strukturbildend, denn der Wunsch der Identifizierung mit den Opfern scheint mittlerweile zur erinnerungspolitischen Norm geworden zu sein” (10; structurally formative, since the wish for identification with the victims seems in the meanwhile to have become a norm within the politics of memory). To empathize with the victims means to position oneself on their side. Jureit and Schneider claim that the Germans have thoroughly internalized this notion: they call them “Olympioniken der Betroffenheit” (19; Olympians of consternation). Their critique highlights the consequences of this identificatory mechanism, first and foremost the self-perception of moral superiority that comes with it.

According to Jureit and Schneider, the problematic point is that wherever Germans ground their self-image exclusively in empathy with the victims, they minimize the need to reflect on their forefathers’ massive support of—or even direct involvement with—the perpetrators: