Jack Goldfrank was uneasy on his way to the German town of Neustadt – the same land his father had been forced to leave in 1933 for fear of Nazi persecution. 83 years old, he still wonders if his parents, gone for decades, would approve of this pilgrimage to their homeland almost a century after their escape.
Upon arriving in Neustadt, Jack and his wife, Jane, were greeted by the Mayor, who announced that they were the second Jewish Americans to return to Neustadt in connection with their family’s history. Welcoming them into his office, he opened what he called “The Book of Remembrances,” with the name of every Neustadt Jew who had fled Nazi persecution from 1933 onwards.
The Mayor then accompanied Jack and Jane to the town’s Jewish cemetery – a burial ground Jack called “not in pristine shape,” but “decent.” “There were a lot of Goldfranks in the cemetery,” Jack tells me. “But the last burial there was in 1937.” No Jews who escaped Nazi persecution had ever returned to live in Neustadt.
Jane adds, “The mayor was very nice. But, in my mind, I’m always remembering that these people, or their parents, were Nazis. It was always like, do they really feel this, or are they doing what they think is right? Does it matter? For me, it was confusing.”
“My big feeling was discomfort,” Jack says.
This trip was the first Jack Goldfrank took on his new German passport after reclaiming his German citizenship in the first months of 2025. This encounter with the mayor of Neustadt would fade in his recollection of the visit, overshadowed by lively memories of Berlin light festivals and museum tours. It wasn’t until sitting with me, his granddaughter, that he and his wife began to revisit the feelings of unease they experienced in Neustadt.
My family is just one of the many American Jewish families that have reclaimed their German citizenship in recent years. Since 2016, the German Consulate in New York City has reported a more than 300% increase in applications for citizenship reclamation, parallel with President Donald Trump’s rise to power. Yet for some Jews who return to Germany generations after their ancestors fled Nazi persecution, the reality reveals that the nation has not moved as far from its past as they once imagined – encountering an overextension of Germany’s “memory culture” around the Holocaust that can manifest in instances of fetishization of Jewish culture and an overperformance of repentance.
Many recipients of reclaimed citizenship are two to three generations removed from the Holocaust themselves; these individuals do not connect reclamation efforts to a traumatic history, but rather an opportunity for smoother travel. Maya Shwayder, a journalist based in New England who reclaimed her citizenship in 2014, said she remembers thinking, “This is great! We can travel so much more easily. This is really, really useful.”
Lara Moser, Texan author and former politician, laughs, telling me, “Why wouldn’t we want a second passport?” Moser continues, “The people who were my generation immediately started applying once we got it because, once you have all the documents and the place, everyone can get it. The older people did not get it right away.”
Jack Goldfrank is only one generation removed from the traumas Nazi Germany inflicted upon his parents, yet for him too “the driving force was really to have the ability to explore other countries pretty easily.” He continues, “My mother and father never talked about their life in Germany, and, shame on me, I never asked them. They never volunteered, and I never raised the issue… I’m not sure if my parents would be proud of what I’ve done, or if they would feel very negative.”
Younger Americans, with a less vivid and recent recollection of the Holocaust, make up the majority of those with reclaimed passports who then decide to move to Germany permanently, mostly for job opportunities or the hope of an improved quality of life. Shwayder and Moser are in their ranks. Sitting in a noisy Berlin cafe, Moser tells me, “There’s definite practical aspects [of living in Germany], like the schools here, and it really does have a functioning social democracy.”
However, upon moving to Germany, Moser did not necessarily encounter the socialized democratic utopia she expected. Instead, she describes a very different reality.
“They fetishize Jews,” she tells me. “The ones who don’t are lying. They’re like, ‘Oh, wow, it’s so beautiful. Thank you. Thank you so much.’ They feel exonerated… like they’re forgiven. And I’m like…no, I literally just wanted healthcare and like good schools…I don’t volunteer that I’m Jewish anymore.”
Germany often receives praise for the ways in which the nation has memorialized historical wrongs and continues to acknowledge the mass atrocity of the holocaust. There is even a word for it, Vergangenheitsbewältigung, which translates to “confronting the past.”
American philosopher and Jew herself, Susan Neiman wrote a book in 2019 called Learning from the Germans, making the case that Germany had successfully faced its Nazi past and urging Western countries, the United States in particular, to follow the German example.
However, when I reached out to Neiman to discuss her thoughts on this topic, she told me that her views, and the world, had changed considerably since she wrote the book. “I’d have never written that book had I not thought that things were getting significantly better,” she says.
In a stark contrast from her previous position, Neiman tells me that she believes German vergangenheitsbewältigung has gone too far. “It’s to the point that some of them call themselves the perpetrator nation. But, if that’s how you essentialize yourself, then there has to be a victim nation, and that victim nation is the Jews…The people who count as real Jews of the official Jewish community are constantly focusing on the victimhood of the Nazi Period.”
