The challenges facing Vergangenheitsbewältigung in modern Germany: Muslim immigration and rising antisemitism. 

Supervised by: Dr Zuleika Rodgers, Associate Professor, Department of Near & Middle Eastern Studies

Project background

In modern Germany, the process of coming to terms with and learning from the atrocities of the Holocaust constitutes a fundamental pillar of national identity. Germans are taught that they must confront Germany’s antisemitic, genocidal history to prevent the recurrence of similar horrors. This process of coming to terms with the past has its own name: Vergangenheitsbewältigung. However, recent events have challenged this central tenet of ‘Germanness’. Notably, the 2015 influx of 1,000,000 refugees (primarily from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan) added new contexts to discussions around antisemitism and Holocaust commemoration as a key part of German national identity, specifically: how to make Vergangenheitsbewältigung relevant to their identity as migrants and how to combat antisemitism among them? The recent eruption in violence between Israel and Palestine adds new urgency to this issue.

Research questions

Faced with a changing population, Germany has had to find new approaches to preserving memory culture. This project aims to examine how Germany is dealing with the consequences of the 2015 wave of migration in relation to Vergangenheitsbewältigung, with regard to Muslim communities. Specifically, it asks two research questions: 1) how is Germany attempting to make the national programme of Vergangenheitsbewältigung relevant to its new (post-2015) migrant population, and 2) how successful are these initiatives at combating anti-semitism and helping young Muslim migrants to integrate into German society?

Objectives

• To assess how the increased presence of Muslim migrant communities has impacted antisemitism in Germany
• To critically examine Germany’s approach to integrating Muslim migrants into the memory culture of Vergangenheitsbewältigung
• To investigate whether this focus on combating antisemitism in new Muslim communities ignores the growth of antisemitism in other parts of society

Methodology

I will employ a qualitative research technique. This involves small sample sizes, but enables me to collect complex data based on participants’ opinions and perceptions. I will:

• conduct thirty-minute interviews (online, recorded, in German) with between five and ten Berlin-based Muslim Germans (aged 18–25) with a migrant background
• employ a semi-structured approach, asking questions relevant to the project’s aims but also leaving space for free discussion
• contextualise these questions through recent events: specifically, how do they feel the recent conflict in Gaza has affected such issues?
• subject the data to thematic analysis to identify key themes and analyse how these relate to my research questions.

To locate interviewees, I will send an introductory letter to Muslim societies at Berlin universities and Muslim-focused community centres, inviting people to contact me if they are interested in taking part. My sample frame will take demographic variables into account. In terms of gender and nationality, the distribution does not pose an inherent issue, but I would prefer a mixed sample. In terms of migration background, I will focus primarily on people who arrived in or after 2015, but will also allow for other backgrounds, if necessary.

I am focusing on Berlin as the most ethnically diverse area where Jewish and Muslim communities exist in close proximity and where memory culture is most physically prominent. While the capital city is perhaps not representative of the country as a whole, it is an important context for the issues I want to research.