'The Politics of Memory' in Europe
The Brian Lehrer Show
WNYC
4.6 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 22 December 2023
⏱️ 31 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Masha Gessen, The New Yorker staff writer and the author of many books including Surviving Autocracy (Riverhead Books, 2020) reports after a trip to Germany on how the memory of the Holocaust complicates calls for a cease fire, support for Palestinians, and Zionism and antisemitism.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's the Brian Lara Show on WNYC. Good morning again everyone. It's quite a time to be |
| 0:16.3 | Marsha Gessin. Just this month Vladimir Putin put the New Yorker staff writer and |
| 0:21.7 | author of 11 books on his wanted list |
| 0:24.8 | criminal charges against Masher Gessen for allegedly spreading false information |
| 0:29.4 | about the Russian military and then in a bizarre irony, an award ceremony honoring Gessin for their political |
| 0:36.0 | thought was cancelled in Germany because of their political thought. |
| 0:41.0 | It was the Hanna-Orent Prize for political thought, given out each year by a |
| 0:45.4 | foundation in Germany associated with the Green Party there. A-Rant having been a |
| 0:49.9 | scholar of totalitarianism in her day, something Gessin is today in theirs. Both Jewish, both |
| 0:57.3 | have had victims of the Nazis and their families. Gessin's family also left the former |
| 1:02.3 | Soviet Union in 1981, if I have my dates right, when |
| 1:06.4 | Masha was 14. |
| 1:08.1 | But something Gessin wrote in the New Yorker, critical of Germany's relationship to free speech about the war in Gaza and conditions in Gaza |
| 1:16.8 | caused the ceremony to be cancelled. |
| 1:19.2 | The award was made nonetheless in a different setting we should say. |
| 1:23.4 | Gessin has been on this show many times over the last decade as some of you know usually |
| 1:27.7 | to speak about their writings on Putin and Trump and totalitarianism. |
| 1:32.1 | Today to speak about Putin and Trump and totalitarianism. Today to speak about Putin and |
| 1:34.0 | Trump and totalitarianism, but also about Gaza and what |
| 1:38.7 | Marsha calls memory culture in Germany. Marsha, always good to have you. |
| 1:43.4 | Welcome back to WNYC. |
| 1:45.5 | Great to be with you, Brian. |
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