On Jan. 23, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier addressed the participants of the Fifth World Holocaust Forum, which met at Jerusalem’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, in a moving speech.
“Germany’s responsibility does not expire,” Steinmeier said. “We want to live up to our responsibility. By this, you should measure us. Seventy-five years after the liberation of Auschwitz, I stand here as the president of Germany, laden with guilt.”
Seventy-five years later, the German government is still accepting responsibility and striving to right wrongs and bring awareness to the darker portions of its country’s history. Rather than glorifying former military leaders, they’ve taken measures to shift the focus onto those impacted by the Nazi regime and to ensure the horrors are never forgotten.
Despite our own country’s dark past, this idea seems foreign. Having grown up in south Louisiana, I’ve been to my fair share of plantation homes and civil war reenactments. I’ve noticed something rather odd. Amid the tributes to the Confederacy, there’s nothing that acknowledges the victims.
We’re accustomed to seeing the statues of civil war generals or memorials to fallen or forgotten soldiers, but infrequently do we come across memorials like Berlin’s Denkmal für die Ermordeten Juden Europas (Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe) – memorials that forgo military themes and glorification and focus instead on the lives lost to unspeakable atrocities.
One exception to this lack of awareness among southern plantations is the Whitney Plantation in Edgar, Louisiana. The museum and memorials honor the enslaved men and women who built and ran the sugar plantation.
Touring old houses with beautifully preserved furniture is interesting, but without addressing the context and acknowledging the reality of plantation life, such tours are meaningless. Restored plantations like the Whitney Plantation should be the rule, rather than the exception.
It would shock anyone to travel to Germany and tour a concentration camp the way most people tour old plantation homes, saying things like “And here’s the formal dining room…and over here you’ll see the original baseboards!”
If we continue failing to educate visitors about the history of slavery in America, about the inhumane treatment and dehumanization which was a part of our country’s economy and history for so many years, then we are complicit in covering up those atrocities.
The controversy over the removal of Confederate monuments sparked heated debates within our community. But whether or not already standing monuments are left in place, future memorials and monuments should be erected to honor those who were enslaved and those who helped free them.
Figures like Harriet Tubman and William Still should be placed on pedestals and highlighted in textbooks. It’s time to follow Germany’s lead and take responsibility as a nation for America’s original sin.
Whether you’re from the North or the South, whether you’re a Democrat or Republican doesn’t matter—we’re all human, just like those who fought in the Civil War and just like those who worked the plantations. This is our heritage. It’s time for America to find its own Vergangenheitsbewältigung or “process of coming to terms with the past.”
Marie Plunkett is a 20-year-old classical studies junior from New Orleans, Louisiana.