Micheal Sturm, a retired Dalton math teacher, was born in 1943 in Frankfurt Germany. He came of age in the decade immediately following the end of the Holocaust, and affirmed that the subject was swept under the rug, ignored in both the classroom and in his personal life. Born into a religious Christian family that was not politically active, he attended a boarding school in the 1950s. Sturm says he never interacted with any Jewish people while he was growing up in Germany, and there was not a single Jewish student at his boarding school. He explains that the “older generation, my parents age, did not want to talk about the Holocaust.”8 While some of the “younger ones my age [would] discuss among themselves,” there were no formal conversations taking place. Sturm remarks simply that “it was not discussed openly.” When I ask him whether he had any recollection whatsoever of discussions of that period, he explains that he “sensed guilt” but that “the word [Holocaust]” was never uttered.9
The repression that Sturm discusses is reinforced by the secondary literature about Germany in the decades following the end of the war. According to Bodo von Borries, a culture of repression was pervasive in Germany in the 1950s. Outlining the evolution in German Holocaust textbooks throughout the 20th century, von Borries returns to the textbook that he learned from in the 50s. He describes “the total inability to learn, the complete suppression of guilt and, at the same time, the feeling of being insulted and the expression of national disappointment. Both overtly and obliquely, only one thing was mourned: the defeat of Germany.”10 In other words, textbooks were presenting a narrative about Germany losing the war, but they were not discussing the Holocaust. In fact, “even in the late 1970s, Jews were not mentioned as a group of people especially threatened after the Nazi invasion of the USSR; rather, “anti-Jewish measures and anti- semitic persecutions were omitted in favor of detailed information about anti-socialist and anti-humanitarian acts.”11 The story of the Jewish genocide simply did not appear in textbooks even as late as the 1970s.
Despite the silence around the Holocaust that characterized Sturm’s youth, he does have one essential memory about his grandmother telling him how she hid Jewish families in her basement during the war. Sturm recounts, “this was the only vivid thing I remember.” Other than this conversation, though, “people were totally embarrassed” by the events of the Holocaust and not willing to revisit the recent and painful past.12 Later in the interview, I ask Sturm how he dealt with the shortcomings of his Holocaust education, and he explains that even to this day, whenever this part of German history is referenced, he feels very empty. He explains that he never felt complicit or accountable, but he did feel upset that these things were not “emphasized in any curriculum.” Indeed, “In West Germany during the first postwar decades…history books were written by Nazi-era teachers, and the urge to repress the past was widespread.”13 If the same people who committed the atrocious crimes of the Holocaust were also teaching about it in the decades following the War, how could Holocaust curriculum begin the work of reconciliation? Of course, it did not. Since Nazis wrote the majority of the post-war curriculum particularly in West Germany, they had a “general neglect of the Holocaust and a tendency to absolve the German people as a whole of responsibility.”14 Thus a number of factors, including a generation of adults and educators who, for various reasons, were not prepared to take responsibility for the crimes of their nation, led to an educational and cultural vacuum that lasted through the 1950s and beyond.
In Sturm’s eyes, the value of contemporary Holocaust education is that it helps people become tolerant, giving them greater “understanding and aware[ness] of Jewish contributions to society.” Sturm, a fan of classical music, shares that 95% of the famous German composers he listens to are Jewish. In fact, he believes that “Jews have contributed … an immeasurable amount … to German culture.” He states that it’s vital to celebrate their legacy, adding that “it would be insane to not cherish” Jewish artists’ achievements.15
Sturm believes that Holocaust education must be reformed and made into a primary part of students’ history curriculum. At the same time, he believes that the national mandate to study the Holocaust in Germany can be off-putting because of its compulsory nature. He would like to see the country find a new way to make Holocaust education accessible and engaging. Lastly, he asserts that the United Nations needs a greater proportion of individuals who understand the importance of Holocaust education to advocate for it.16
Rather than standing as a singular or unique narrative, Sturm’s account of his education characterizes the experiences of most members of his generation in Germany. The pervasive repression and silence that he describes was present throughout the nation, which was, at the time, more concerned with mourning its own loss in the war than acknowledging the millions of murders that took place under the Nazi regime. Therefore, historian Stephen Pagaard asserts, “it is difficult indeed to find individuals educated in the 1950s, 1960s, or early 1970s who can recall these subjects being taught at all, let alone with care.”17 Overall, Sturm’s account reflects the research that shows that, in the years immediately following the Holocaust, there was no national dialogue and no formalized curriculum. As a result, shame and silence prevailed.18
My full interview with Micheal Sturm can be found here: https://youtu.be/lNu_D8nrMAU