‘Never Again’ — Why Only on Memorial Days?

Eighty-eight years after the November pogroms, Germany commemorates the victims of Nazi violence. Politicians lay wreaths, give speeches and declare their solidarity with Jewish life. Yet the threats facing our Jewish fellow citizens have intensified. How credible is remembrance if our responsibility in the present does not live up to our words?

November 9 belongs to the victims. To the people whose synagogues were set on fire, whose businesses were destroyed, who were humiliated, assaulted, deported and murdered. It belongs to their names and their stories.

But time and again, this day risks becoming a stage for political self-promotion.

The images are familiar: wreath-laying ceremonies, solemn faces and speeches. Politicians whom I rarely notice at other events organized by Jewish communities turn up for this occasion. As elections approach, some seem to become particularly visible. I sometimes wonder whether remembrance is always their main concern, or whether their own political image also plays a part.

Of course, this does not apply to everyone. Many politicians have worked sincerely and consistently against antisemitism for years. Their commitment deserves recognition.

But anyone who speaks of Germany’s historical responsibility must also accept that responsibility beyond public commemorative events.

A question that makes me ashamed

On November 9, the Cologne newspaper Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger published an interview with Mascha Kogan and Eduard Steinberg, two board members of Germany’s Association of Jewish Teachers and Education Professionals.

The headline, translated from German, read: “The question is how much longer we will be safe.”

I found those words difficult to read.

I felt ashamed. Not for crimes I did not commit myself, but as part of a society in which our Jewish fellow citizens must ask such a question at all, 88 years after the November pogroms.

Antisemitism never disappeared after 1945. Since Hamas’s terrorist attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, however, hostility and threats have intensified considerably.

What does it say about our society when our Jewish neighbors, colleagues and friends must consider whether they can openly show their identity?

We build memorials, place Stolpersteine — the small brass plaques in German streets commemorating victims of Nazi persecution — and speak about historical responsibility. Yet we are not doing enough to protect our Jewish fellow citizens in everyday life.

Antisemitism must not be minimized

My experiences working in parent representative bodies and discussions with people involved in school and education policy have given me particular cause for concern.

Again and again, I have encountered an almost automatic response when antisemitism is specifically raised. We are told that all forms of discrimination must be considered, that hostility toward Muslims must also be discussed, or that Israeli government policy needs to be taken into account.

Sometimes serious concerns about antisemitic positions are even dismissed as political instrumentalization.

Of course, every form of discrimination must be challenged. But why does it seem so difficult to take antisemitism seriously as a problem in its own right?

I find it particularly troubling when the conflict in the Middle East is used to minimize antisemitic incidents. Israel is sometimes portrayed as solely responsible, while Hamas’s terrorist attack on October 7, 2023, and the organization’s responsibility fade into the background.

This risks reversing the roles of perpetrators and victims. Instead of holding accountable those who insult, threaten or attack our Jewish fellow citizens, the discussion shifts toward Israel.

Jewish citizens in Germany are not responsible for decisions made by the Israeli government. Antisemitism cannot be justified by the conflict in the Middle East.

The education ministry in North Rhine-Westphalia, the German state where I live, also encourages students and teachers to report antisemitic incidents. But what follows such reports? Are those affected protected? Are the incidents properly investigated and addressed?

Anyone reporting antisemitism must be able to trust that doing so will lead to protection and concrete action, not personal disadvantages.

When remembrance becomes a political stage

On October 9, 2026, members of the Jewish Student Union of Germany formed a human chain in Halle to prevent Hans-Thomas Tillschneider, a politician from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, from entering the synagogue grounds.

People had gathered there to remember the victims of the far-right terrorist attack in 2019, when an attacker tried to enter the synagogue on Yom Kippur and subsequently murdered two people elsewhere in the city.

I admire the courage of those young people who opposed what they saw as political appropriation of their remembrance. It is shocking that, according to the students themselves, some subsequently received death threats.

Their protest raises a question that goes beyond this particular incident. Whose interests should take priority at a memorial ceremony: those of the people remembering their dead, or those of politicians wishing to demonstrate their presence?

Elected representatives have every right to attend commemorations, and many do so out of genuine conviction. But they must be prepared to respect the people and communities for whom these occasions carry a deeply personal meaning.

The obligation to confront antisemitism applies to every political party. It must also apply when doing so is uncomfortable within one’s own political circles.

For me, remembrance loses its credibility when the public expression of solidarity is not followed by a willingness to act.

Remembrance belongs to the victims. We owe responsibility to the living.

The November pogroms of 1938 did not target an abstract group of victims. They targeted people with names, families, hopes and futures that were violently taken from them.

Our Jewish fellow citizens have the right to live openly, safely and as a natural part of German society. Without hiding their identity, without having to answer for Israeli government policy, and without fearing the consequences of reporting antisemitic incidents.

The question asked by those two Jewish teachers in Cologne — how much longer they will be safe — should do more than make us think. It should make us ashamed and compel us to act.

November 9 must not become a political obligation fulfilled merely to maintain one’s public image. It is a commitment to those who were murdered and to our Jewish fellow citizens today, whose safety must not depend on ceremonial words.

Those who say “Never Again” on November 9 must live up to those words on November 10.