German Idea to Fight Anti-Semitism: Make Immigrants Tour Concentration Camps

Alarmed by displays of anti-Semitism among new immigrants to Germany, a German politician has offered a novel idea that appears to be gaining traction: required visits to Nazi concentration camp memorials.

The idea, proposed by Sawsan Chebli, a Berlin state legislator of Palestinian heritage, received a significant boost on Wednesday when the leaders of Germany’s Central Council of Jews and the far larger World Jewish Congress agreed with her.

“People who have fled to us who have themselves had to escape or been expelled can develop empathy in such memorials,” the council’s president, Josef Schuster, told Deutschlandfunk radio.