Stranger in My Own Country: A Jewish Family in Modern Germany
Mounk’s family was devastated by the Holocaust; those who survived were scattered across Europe after WWII. Yet Mounk’s immediate family carved out an existence in their native Poland, most as loyal Communists, until anti-Semitic party purges in the 1960s and ’70s led them to settle in Germany, where Mounk was born, in 1982. As a young Jew growing up in postwar Germany, his revelation to friends and acquaintances of his Jewish identity elicited a variety of responses, some predictable and some surprising. Some people were openly hostile, spouting blatantly racist screeds. Others reacted with what is best termed sullen silence, while others felt compelled to overreact with a stance of exaggerated philo-Semitism. More recently, Mounk has detected a shift in attitudes of many Germans, which has broad implications beyond relations with Jews. He perceives a sense that Germans feel that their “guilt” has been expiated by the passage of time, which results in a rise of German nationalism within Europe, unapologetic hostility to immigrants, and even a reassertion of claims of German “victimization.” --Jay Freeman