Kobi Kabalek (Penn State): “Other Germans”: Memories of Rescuing Jews in Postwar Germany between Exceptions and Rules"

Abstract: How do people in Germany speak about Germans rescuing Jews during the Holocaust? Do they use rescuers to argue that there were many “good Germans” and cast a positive light on their country? Currently, German public statements about the topic emphasize the opposite. They stress that rescuers were exceptional among the wartime German population and condemn most Germans by stating that the minority showed what the majority could have done, but didn’t. But postwar Germans (Jews and Christians) presented different views on this issue and different understandings of the relationship between minority and majority or exception and rule. The paper will discuss a few examples, from the immediate postwar years to the present, of how Germans depicted the rescue of Jews in trials, autobiographies, newspaper articles, letters, films, and various other media and public debates. By tracing the changing views, the paper will reflect on broader outlooks concerning the memories of Nazism and the Holocaust in Germany.

Kobi Kabalek is Assistant Professor of Holocaust Studies and Visual Studies, German and Jewish Studies, at Penn State University. He earned his Ph.D. in history from the University of Virginia, with a dissertation on “The Rescue of Jews and the Memory of Nazism in Germany” (2013). His research focuses on historical perceptions, moral sentiments, and memory in film, literature, auto/biography, oral narratives, art, etc., in German, Israeli, and global Holocaust history. He currently explores marginalized and extreme phenomena in Holocaust testimonies, historical writing, and popular culture – with special attention to the role of fantasy, imagination, and horror – and their impact on our understanding and representation of the Holocaust.