If you are one of those who wonder how and why Germany has presented such an irrational and immoral attitude vis-à-vis what has been going on in Gaza since October 7, 2023, there is a book for you: Esra Özyürek’s Subcontractors of Guilt: Holocaust Memory and Muslim Belonging in Postwar Germany. Although its aim is not to answer this question, the book does this by focusing on how Holocaust memory and a certain understanding of antisemitism shaped the postwar German identity and how Muslim-background immigrants in Germany are expected to comply with this memory and identity, as well as their responses to these expectations. It also “explores when, how, and why Middle Eastern/Muslim-background Germans moved from the periphery to the center of Holocaust memory discussions in Germany as potential perpetrators of antisemitic crimes, and what this development means for Holocaust commemoration on the one hand and for the place of immigrants in Germany and in an enlarged Europe on the other” (p. 2).
In the introduction Özyürek clearly summarizes the main questions and concerns of the book. The beginning point of the story is the fact that, as Özyürek explains, remembering Holocaust memory, learning the terrible crimes of the Holocaust, atoning for them, and developing necessary emotions such as empathy to prevent its repetition have become the backbone of German identity in the postwar era. The second turning point is the inclusion of Muslim groups into this narrative, who had been excluded from this process as being defined external and irrelevant until the 2000s. Then, these groups started to be seen as obstacles for the maintenance of German democracy since they do not share the same memory of the Holocaust and values with ethnic Germans. From that point on, they became the main target of education programs about the Holocaust and of antisemitism prevention organized by the federal and local governments as well as non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Members of Muslim groups are expected to follow in the footsteps of ethnic German generations who have advanced on the path of democracy by facing the crimes of their (grand)parents since the end of World War II. In this way, they are expected to identify themselves with Nazi perpetrators on the one hand and empathize with Jewish victims on the other.
Within this main framework, the first chapter focuses on the (assumed) role of familial relations, especially of fathers both in the rise of German fascism in the early twentieth century and current antisemitism among Muslim groups in Germany (and elsewhere). According to this analysis, harsh, conservative, and religious values imposed by fathers on children exacerbate authoritarianism, racism/antisemitism, discrimination, and violence in society and thus this is an impediment for the consolidation and maintenance of democracy. Therefore, those Muslim-background people are expected to question and reject their fathers’ values as earlier German generations had done.
The second chapter handles how the German state and society relate Nazism and antisemitism with Muslim communities in Germany. Özyürek names this approach an “export–import theory” because, according to this thinking, antisemitism is a European invention that had been imported to the Middle East first by Christian missionaries in the nineteenth century and later by Nazis in the twentieth century, and then in the postwar era Muslim immigrants carried it back to Europe. Although statistics show that most of the antisemitic crimes are committed by right-wing ethnic Germans, this understanding points to Muslims in Germany as the major source of antisemitism. It “depicts Muslims as carriers of Germany’s past into the present … Until they atoned for their antisemitism, the theory went, they would remain locked in [Germany’s] past” (p. 16).
The third chapter provides an account of how Muslim youth in Germany navigate in this environment that blames them for antisemitism and of their perception and reaction to this narrative. Indeed, some of them heartfully accept the task of learning about the Holocaust and fighting against antisemitism, so becoming “genuine” Germans, and even educate their peers to spread consciousness about these issues. However, there are also some critics from Muslim youth regarding the mentality of education programs. For example, some members of the Muslim minority in Germany think that while they are pushed to empathize with Jewish victims of the Holocaust, they are not allowed to demand empathy for themselves, given the discrimination they face in today’s Germany. Interestingly enough, some Turkish-oriented immigrants, after learning what Nazis did to Jews, started to fear that Germans could do the same thing to them.
Chapter 4 explains how and through which methods – workshops, theater plays, visits to Nazi concentration camps – antisemitism prevention programs try to transform the mentality of Muslim-background youth about Jews. Özyürek argues that Germans try to overcome their sense of guilt about Jews by “educating” Muslim immigrants to curb their assumed antisemitism. As she explains, they try to convince especially Arab-Palestine-originated Muslims, by connecting the Holocaust and Israel–Palestine conflict, that Jews are not perpetrators but victims, that Arabs are on the perpetrator side as they collaborated with the Nazis, and that anti-Zionism means antisemitism.
The fifth and last chapter focuses exclusively on visits to Auschwitz organized by antisemitism prevention programs in order to raise the awareness of Muslim youth about the Holocaust and antisemitism and make them empathize with Jewish victims. It tries to understand the aim and way of thinking behind these visits. Özyürek observes that this “pilgrimage” to Auschwitz is expected to work as shock therapy for Muslim-oriented youth that would “fast forward” the process that German generations have experienced in postwar Germany.
The research effort behind this book is extensive and comprehensive. Özyürek observed and participated in several programs of Holocaust education, trips to historical sites, and history classes, conducted in-depth interviews, and attended exhibitions and performances over five years. Thanks to this deep research, she provides rich ethnographic details and insightful observations which make the reader understand the situation on the ground better. The author also presents a clear way of articulation throughout the book. However, references to theoretical texts can be mentioned as an exception to this, as sometimes the links between the data at hand and theory are not solid enough. Various remarks from different theorists (for example, between pp. 32 and 34 or between pp. 107 and 110) do not align well but just seem to sit on top of each other. The reader may have difficulty in understanding why specifically these theories are referred to as they do not shed extra light on the questions handled.
Another mind-opening quality of the book is Özyürek’s critical approach to the education programs and the mentality of German public authorities and NGOs that associate Muslim groups with antisemitism. She shows the inner contradictions and inadequacies of this dominant approach to Muslim communities and antisemitism with translucent argumentation and substantial evidence. Özyürek’s “critique of German Holocaust education, and of the conceptualization of empathy that constitutes it, flips the inquiry: rather than putting the emotional reactions of Muslim minority Germans to the Holocaust on trial for their inadequacies, it interrogates reigning assumptions of German national belonging that offer a single historical perspective as a moral standard” (p. 24).
One of Özyürek’s essential and to-the-point criticism of the approach of German public authorities and NGOs towards Muslim communities is that they ignore both domestic and international contexts as well as previous experiences and positionality of these people. For instance, “holding Islam or Muslims responsible for passing on antisemitic Nazi ideology from generation to generation turns a blind eye to the contemporary political dynamics in Israel/Palestine that pour fuel on the kind of antisemitism the [German] government reports and programs are aiming to understand and keep under control” (p. 86). Similarly, while experts in these programs contend that antisemitism of Palestinians and Arabs is based on “false imagination” that they are victims of Israel and the Western world, as Özyürek very pertinently underlines, they ignore that Palestinian refugees in Germany, being forced to leave their homes, live in precarious conditions, and are subjected to discrimination.
Another contradiction of these programs that Özyürek detects is that although their purpose is to integrate these Muslim youth to German society, their approach marginalizes them. More specifically speaking, some education programs try to connect the Arab/Palestinian community with the Holocaust via some historical Arab figures who collaborated with the Nazis such as the Mufti of Jerusalem. By so doing, they encourage those Muslims to associate themselves with the perpetrators rather than the victims. However, contrary to the aim of integrating them into German society, they, in this way, highlight Muslims’ ethno-religious difference. “In this model, by connecting themselves ethnogenealogically to the Mufti of Jerusalem, Palestinian background youth assume responsibility for Nazism not on behalf of their families but of their nations …” (p. 140). Thus, these education programs tie these young Muslims to their primordial ethnic identity.
Özyürek also argues very insightfully that although Muslim youth participate in these programs for social recognition and acknowledgment, and despite their enthusiasm and hard work to be included in the postwar German social contract, they gain only a partial license to enter. They, as individuals, get some benefits such as funding for their projects, appearing in media, receiving awards and attention, finishing their education, etc. but, they, as members of the Muslim community, continue to face mundane discrimination in daily life.
Although it is not an explicit concern of Subcontractors of Guilt, the book sheds light on a lesson about democracy and facing history. It is true that facing the collective crimes of the past and remembering them is a prerequisite of maintaining democracy. However, this book reminds us of the potential risks and deviations in this process using the German example. Although some emotional investment such as generating empathy and moral scrupulousness is essential to face and atone for the past crimes of the nation, if reason does not take the lead at some point, one cannot cultivate the general principles from this process that can and should be applicable to all cases and contexts. Nevertheless, Özyürek’s work shows us that Germany has deposited so much emotion and catharsis in the struggle of antisemitism that it has blurred its vision of Israel, the criticization of which seems to be raising the old specter. Germany also seems to miss the point that lessons that should be learnt from facing history for the sake of democracy should not be restricted to this or that ethno-religious group. Although Germany perceives the Holocaust as something between only Germans and Jews, ultimately, it is an example of what man can do to man. If they are stigmatized and demonized like Jews in the past, there is no reason not to imagine that Muslims may be the next Jews of Germany, and Europe for that matter.
