“To be renamed”,
“request further research”
or “
should include elements of contextualization”
.
Here is the report drawn up of nearly 300 streets and squares in the city of Berlin, all bearing anti-Semitic references.
This report, on the initiative of the city commissioner in charge of the fight against anti-Semitism, Samuel Salzborn, takes care to categorize each surname in one of the three nomenclatures.
Read alsoMunich plans to rename Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss streets because of their “troubled past”
'Erasing his name would not save a single Jewish life'
Already hunted down by the city of Munich, the composer Richard Wagner does not escape the Berlin report. His name, inseparable from the Aryan ideology, is mentioned twice, the German capital having a square and a Wagner street. Both are classified
as "to be renamed"
, a conclusion deemed hasty for Barrie Kosky, director of the Komische Oper (Comic Opera) in Berlin. This grandson of Jewish emigrants from Europe chants that Wagner “
caused much less trouble for the Jews in Germany than the Catholic and Protestant Churches for 2000 years. Erasing his name from Wagner Platz would not help anyone and would not save a single Jewish life,”
he told the
Berliner Zeitung
.
According to this census, the militant Martin Luther King as well as the Protestant Jean Calvin would not have their place in the streets of Berlin.
Charles de Gaulle is also mentioned.
For the avenue to keep its name, its position during the Six Day War must be the subject of
further research
.
“It's horrible that we make lists in Germany in the 21st century,
continues Barrie Kosky.
We have seen enough of German lists in the 20th century.
Not only in Nazi times, but also in the GDR.
Today, there should be a ban on lists.
Lists are dangerous.
This makes no difference between a politician, an artist, an author
”.
