Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Gottfried Wagner, great-grandson of German composer Richard Wagner, spoke this week at the University of North Carolina Wilmington about the need to build dialogue between German Jews and non-Jewish Germans born after 1945, noting that both groups were victims of World War II.

The highly regarded author, musicologist and humanitarian was the keynote speaker for Days of Remembrance, a week-long series of events remembering the Holocaust through art, music, film and dance.

Because they did not participate directly in the Holocaust, he said, Jews and Germans born after 1945 endured a "shared silence" in their families, as well as a sense of loss and tragedy.

"Children of perpetrators grew up with parents and grandparents who did not have a humane orientation and conceived of their past without confronting it," he said, while children of Holocaust survivors were fearful of asking about their missing family members or delving too deeply into their parents' painful memories.

Wagner speaks from experience. He shared his family's history and close relationship with Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich, including a photo slide show of his family walking with Hitler during his visits to Bayreuth, the Wagner ancestral home. His great-grandfather's anti-Semitic writings inspired Hitler to write Mein Kampf.

As co-founder of the international Post-Holocaust Dialogue Groups, Wagner has concentrated his efforts on encouraging dialogue and healing between Germans and Jews.

Days of Remembrance is presented by the UNCW Office of Cultural Arts, in partnership with local and regional community and arts organizations. The series of events leads up to Yom Hashoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day, which will be observed this year on May 2. It is an international time of reflection on, and remembrance of, the millions of Shoah victims who perished during the Holocaust.