On Wednesday, 24 May, at 7 p. m., journalist and foreign correspondent Charlotte Wiedemann will present her book "Den Schmerz der Anderen begreifen. Holocaust und Weltgedächtnis" (Understanding the Pain of Others. Holocaust and World Memory) in the Council Chamber of the Nordhausen City Library. With the book, which has already been included in the programme of the Federal Agency for Civic Education, the journalist contributes to the debate on how the commemoration of the Holocaust and colonial crimes relate to each other.
In doing so, Charlotte Wiedemann is committed to creating a solidary, empathetic "world memory". Admitting guilt, she observes, is easier for Germans and people in general in the global West towards people they now regard as equals than towards groups of people who continue to be discriminated against, such as Black people or Slavs. Non-European crimes have hardly been punished, although the international criminal justice system developed as a result of the Holocaust is based on supposedly universal rights. The feeling of being ignored consequently shapes the view of the Holocaust outside the West. In this context, according to Wiedemann, the Holocaust could take on the role of a focal point of remembrance politics within the framework of the world memory she is striving for, where a commemoration of other victims of world history also emerges.
The book presentation will take place in cooperation with the Landeszentrale für politische Bildung Thüringen and will be held in German.
