30 | JANUARY 12 • 2023

NEXTDOR
VOICE OF A NEW GENERATION
REMEMBRANCE
CULTURE

BY YEVGENIYA GAZMAN

When Jakob Hoffmann, one of
the Germany Close Up guides,
used the term “remembrance
culture” at our welcome and
introduction meeting in Berlin,
Germany, I thought, “How
novel and insightful a term.” I
did not realize how accurate,
ingrained and common the
term would be for The Well’s
experience with Germany Close
Up.
Germany Close Up was estab-
lished in 2007 and, since 2021,
is administered by the German
Academic Exchange Service
(DAAD). Germany Close Up is
an independent initiative fund-
ed by the German government.
The goal of the program is to
show the good and the bad of
modern Germany. Program
Director Kathleen Gransow
said the program presents many
perspectives and may confuse a
little bit rather than give a single
answer or viewpoint.
Upon returning from
Germany, I agonized over doing
justice to the experience in
writing and photographs that I
planned to share with the com-
munity through this story for
the Detroit Jewish News.
Twice since returning
from Berlin, I visited the
Zekelman Holocaust Center
in Farmington Hills to gather
my thoughts and get my facts
straight. I was most concerned
about accurately depicting the
magnitude of Kristallnacht.
Of all the things we learned
about on the trip, the most
striking to me was the scale of
destruction on Kristallnacht.
In our program for the trip,
the Wednesday, Nov. 9, eve-
ning activity was labeled
“Commemoration Event of the
Jewish Community of Berlin
of the 84th Anniversary of the

November Pogroms of 1938.” I
had heard the term “pogrom”
before but not in connection
with Germany, but rather
Russia. Pogrom is a Russian
word.
One of our guides, Johanna
Blender, explained that, essen-
tially, it is not politically correct
to say Kristallnacht in Germany
because it is a Nazi term and
may have some antisemitic
trope associated with Jews and
wealth. So rather than referring
to the night of Nov. 9, 1938, as
Kristallnacht, it is referred to
by Germans as the November
Pogroms of 1938. Everyone
on the trip recognized and felt
comfortable using the term
Kristallnacht. Needless to say,
the horror of the event was not
lost for us in the language.
Not only was our group in
Berlin on the Gregarian anni-
versary of Kristallnacht, we
were also there on the Hebrew
calendar date anniversary — a
rare overlap.
Prior to this trip, I did
not understand how pivotal
Kristallnacht was in the mobili-
zation of hate and carrying out
of brutal violence against Jews. I
did not grasp that Kristallnacht
was not merely an insidious riot
against Jews in a central loca-
tion, but rather in a single night
on Nov. 9, 1938, “91 Jews were
murdered, more than 1,400
synagogues across Germany
and Austria were torched,
and Jewish-owned shops and
businesses were plundered and
destroyed. In addition, the Jews
were forced to pay ‘compensa-
tion’ for the damage that had
been caused and approximately
30,000 Jews were arrested and
sent to concentration camps.”
(yadvashem.org)
1,400 synagogues! Can you
fathom this scale of destruc-
tion? In a single night!?
On the day prior to the
Kristallnacht anniversary,

Yevgeniya
Gazman

Gate to Jewish
cemetery in
Halberstadt

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