Final verdict: the holocaust on trial in the 21st century - tobias buck

The gripping narrative of one of the last Nazi criminal trials in Germany--that of Bruno Dey, a 93-year-old former concentration camp guard charged with aiding the murder of more than 5,000 people--and a larger exploration of Germanys reckoning with the Holocaust, from silence to memory to todays rising tide of fascism and antisemitism.

Bruno Deys trial formed part of an extraordinary series of Holocaust cases brought by German prosecutors in recent years in a belated attempt to deliver justice to the victims and reverse decades of judicial neglect.

It also surfaced at a pivotal moment for Germany and its thinking about the Holocaust.

The Nazi genocide continues to occupy a crucial space in German public life, but many of the countrys long-held certainties and convictions around the Holocaust are starting to fray.

This reflects in part the passage of time, and the fact that the last surviving witnesses--victims and perpetrators alike--are rapidly fading away.

But its also the result of profound changes in German politics and society.

The far-right has made electoral gains and is openly challenging the countrys historic commitment to Holocaust remembrance.

At the same time, there is a small but vociferous group of intellectuals on the left who question Germanys memory culture from a different angle, asking what political lessons the country should draw from the Holocaust today.

What does it mean for the countrys new Muslim citizens from Syria and Afghanistan, many of whom arrived with their own traumas, to be expected to assume the nations guilt? Final Verdict investigates questions that touch on German history, politics, and memory culture, and on the authors own family history.

Buck revisits the silence that surrounds his own familys experiences and conduct during the Nazi period.

In the face of rising anti-Semitism in Germany, the United States, and globally, Final Verdict examines the case for Holocaust justice in the twenty-first century--and the lessons that Germanys struggle with its Nazi past holds for the world today.