A new German-born minister takes a stand on promoting Jewish life in Germany.
In a recent interview, the newly appointed Federal Minister of Education and Family, Karin Prien, expressed her intention to make Jewish life more visible in its diversity, emphasizing its significance for the identity of the German people. Prien, a member of the Christian Democratic Union, is the first federal minister in the Federal Republic to openly discuss her Jewish heritage. Born in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, to parents who had fled Nazi persecution, Prien moved to Germany at the age of four and grew up in Neuwied, Rhineland-Palatinate.
Prien’s decision to speak publicly about her family’s history was influenced by her mother’s warnings, who had internalized the notion that, after their relocation to Germany, they were again in the land of the perpetrators. The minister’s mother had instilled in her the fear that one could never be certain whether someone was not, in fact, a Nazi.
As a child, Prien was aware of this mindset, but as a teenager, she began to strongly identify with Germany, leading to a conflict with her mother’s views. She believed that she was living in a different, free Germany, committed to basic and human rights.
In 2016, Prien publicly discussed her heritage for the first time, receiving a mixed response. She recalled a formative experience at the Yad Vashem memorial in Jerusalem, where she met the daughter of a Holocaust survivor, who spoke about the feeling of being a tree without branches, having no cousins or aunts due to the destruction of her family. Prien identified with this sentiment, realizing that her own relatives were either killed or had emigrated.
With a sense of responsibility as a politician, Prien aims to raise awareness about Jewish life and anti-Semitism, which she believes is intensifying in Germany, rather than decreasing. She cited a recent phenomenon, in which prominent members of the Jewish community have expressed a sense of unease, stating that their suitcases are again in sight, but the question remains as to where they could go if they had to flee.