Germany
Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe (MaryG90, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons)
April 30, 2025, 11:44 am
When past meets present: A reflection on Germany Close Up
A journey through Berlin reveals how memory lives not in monuments, but in the stories we carry and the voices we hear.
By Christopher Lessler
Friedrich Merz, chancellor candidate of Germany’s Christian Democrats, speaks to supporters at CDU headquarters in Berlin following preliminary results showing him leading in federal elections, Feb. 23, 2025. (Maja Hitij/Getty Images)
February 24, 2025, 11:14 am
Far-right AfD notches record 2nd-place finish in German election
Frederick Merz, leader of the conservative Christian Democrats, is virtually assured of becoming Germany’s next chancellor.
By Philissa Cramer
Ohio Sen. and Republican vice-presidential nominee J.D. Vance attends the third day of Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, July 17, 2024. (Jacek Boczarski/Anadolu via Getty Images)
February 16, 2025, 12:10 pm
JD Vance tells German leaders to abandon their ‘firewall’ against the far right
Vance’s speech came after he visited Dachau, a Nazi concentration camp, and just before Germany’s national elections.
By Ben Sales
Israeli President Isaac Herzog and Elon Musk in November 2023 (Photo by Haim Zach / Government Press Office of Israel, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons)
January 27, 2025, 7:51 am
Elon Musk to far-right German political party: ‘There is too much focus on past guilt’
Musk’s virtual appearance at an AfD rally closely followed his delivery of what some saw as a Nazi salute at a Trump event.
By Philissa Cramer
Steffen Seibert, Germany’s ambassador to Israel, presents the Federal Order of Merit to Berlin-born Holocaust survivor George Shefi, 93, in Israel on Jan. 12, 2025. (Photo courtesy of International March of the Living)
January 15, 2025, 9:29 am
Holocaust survivor, 93, who fled Berlin at 7 gets German Order of Merit
The 93-year-old is also slated to take part in the annual International March of the Living in Poland on April 24.
By By JNS Staff
The Stolpersteine, or Stumbling Block, placed outside Anna Donat’s Berlin home shows when she was deported to Auschwitz. (Courtesy Stolpersteine)
December 31, 2024, 10:41 am
German woman who lives in home looted from Jews must give it up, judge rules
The decision comes after a decade of legal wrangling over a restitution claim that is likely to be the last of its kind.
By Toby Axelrod
Police officers secure the area around the Koenigsplatz square after a shooting near the building of the Documentation Centre for the History of National Socialism and the Israeli consulate in Munich, southern Germany, on Sept. 5, 2024. (Photo by Pauline Curtet/AFP via Getty Images, via JNS)
September 5, 2024, 8:04 am
Gunman opens fire near Israeli consulate in Munich
German security forces shot and killed the suspect during an exchange of fire.
By Charles Bybelezer
Irmgard Furchner, a former secretary for the SS commander of the Stutthof concentration camp, arrives with her lawyers during her trial in Itzehoe, Germany, Dec. 6, 2022. German courts require the face of defendants to be obscured in photographs. (Marcus Brandt/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)
August 20, 2024, 5:03 pm
Germany court upholds conviction of 99-year-old former Nazi concentration camp secretary
There remain three more cases of accused accomplices to Nazi war crimes pending.
By Toby Axelrod
Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. (Photo by Adam Reinherz)
August 12, 2024, 5:38 pm
Germany Close Up prompts questions about country’s past and future
Seminar takes young North American Jewish leaders to Germany to ask and teach
By Adam Reinherz
Holocaust survivor Margot Friedländer, June 12, 2012. (Credit: Scott-Hendryk Dillan via Wikimedia Commons)
June 26, 2024, 7:01 pm
102-year-old Shoah survivor is the cover star of Vogue Germany
Margot Friedländer was the only member of her family to survive the camps.
By JNS
Lydia Barenholz and Ruth Melcer, who attended Munich's post-war Hebrew high school together, are shown with some of the objects they contributed to the new exhibit, "Munich Displaced. The Surviving Remnant." (Daniel Schvarcz)
July 14, 2023, 2:18 pm
Landmark exhibits shed light on life in displaced person camps after the Holocaust
The exhibition project is the first to focus on the lives of the people who fled, were displaced or deported during World War II and then found themselves in or near Munich.
By Toby Axelrod
​​Claims Conference delegation for negotiations with the German government on behalf of Holocaust survivors in Berlin, Germany, May 8, 2023. (Photo courtesy of Claims Conference)
June 15, 2023, 12:59 pm
Germany agrees to $1.4 billion in annual Holocaust reparations as survivors age
The record figure reflected a recognition that, even as the number of survivors dwindles with each passing year, their needs are increasing as they age.
By Asaf Elia-Shalev
Roger Waters performs in Munich, May 21, 2023. (Angelika Warmuth/picture alliance via Getty Images)
May 25, 2023, 1:11 pm
Roger Waters uses Anne Frank’s name at German concerts, prompting calls for punishment from Jewish groups
He reportedly at times dons an SS uniform and symbolically shoots a machine gun into the crowd.
By Toby Axelrod
Former Nazi concentration camp guard Josef Schütz hides his face with a folder as he arrives to a makeshift courtroom in Brandenburg-Havel to hear the verdict in his trial, June 28, 2022. (Adam Berry/AFP via Getty Images)
April 27, 2023, 5:49 pm
German man who was oldest-ever person tried for Nazi crimes has died at 102
He died while waiting for an appeal after being sentenced to five years in prison.
By Jackie Hajdenberg
Deborah Lipstadt and Felix Klein visit the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe during a meeting of special envoys and coordinators to combat antisemitism in Berlin, Jan. 30, 2023. (Wolfgang Kumm/picture alliance via Getty Images)
February 9, 2023, 4:01 pm
‘We have to be here fighting’: Deborah Lipstadt on her Poland-Germany trip with Douglas Emhoff
"Some people say this is just like the 1930s. It is not."
By Toby Axelrod
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