As we commemorate the 80th anniversary of World War II’s gradual, grinding close, from V-E Day on May 8 through V-J Day on Aug. 14, I recently had the opportunity to travel to Germany.
I was one of 50 delegates from the U.S. and Germany gathered for a joint project titled “Building a Critical Memory: Transitioning from Denial to Collective Responsibility in Germany and the United States.” The Southern Poverty Law Center is one of the organizers, participating along with members from academia, museums, memorials and foundations in both countries.
The first part of our journey involved a week in Germany, where we learned how Germans commemorate and remember their past, particularly focusing on the history of the Nazis and World War II. Later this year, the SPLC will co-host a visit from our German counterparts as they come to the U.S. to observe how we remember, or more importantly, how we still haven’t honestly confronted our history of slavery and the Confederacy.
The persistence of memory
Confronting a nation’s history is not just the responsibility of the government, be it federal, state or local. It also has to occur at an individual level.
For example, many Germans today are only now dealing with their family members’ actions and allegiances during World War II — admitting to having grandparents who were Nazis, for example.
Understanding a nation’s history requires confronting uncomfortable truths, truths that individuals choose to deny or conveniently ignore from the past in order to avoid the difficult realities of the roles their family members played.
In my current position, it is an honor to have the ability to travel throughout the Deep South. However, the individuals I meet who take pride in their ancestors who served in the Confederate military still astonish me, as well as those who proudly recount stories of their families owning plantations. This creation of a false narrative of the “happy” life on the plantation hinders our ability as a nation to remember and teach a true history. Furthermore, it doesn’t allow for those who are descendants of people who were enslaved to obtain the true recognition of the suffering their ancestors endured.
Naming our ghosts
Yet it isn’t just that past we are dealing with. Currently, the spirits of that “Lost Cause” continue to walk among us.
It was particularly concerning a couple of weeks ago when President Donald Trump announced the decision to restore the names of military bases that served to memorialize Confederate leaders. Even if the “new” names allegedly honor other service members, the resurrection of these titles continues to glorify a past that we shouldn’t venerate.
As our German counterparts prepare to visit the U.S. later this year to learn about our efforts in the Deep South to preserve and expand the history of the Civil Rights Movement, I reflect on my recent trip to significant historical sites, such as the Dachau concentration camp, the Memorium Nuremberg Trials and the Topography of Terror Museum in Berlin. I’ve come to realize that we all share a collective responsibility to acknowledge history, whether it pertains to events from 1865 or those occurring today.
We cannot deny the realities of both the past and the present. We must educate ourselves on truthful and accurate histories, which will require all of us to acknowledge our families’ roles related to the past.
Julian Teixeira is the chief communications officer at the SPLC.
Image at top: The Dachau Concentration Camp Memorial Site in Dachau, Germany. (Credit: (Jacob Saylor)