On February 25, 2026, I had the honor of moderating Never Again Is Now, the first collaboration between the Wende Museum and the Goethe International Charter School in Culver City. The sold-out evening was deeply moving and personally meaningful.
Holocaust survivors Mary Bauer and Joe Alexander (103) shared their reflections and life experiences. Illustrator and author Stephanie Lunkewitz spoke about Eva Szepesi, as told in her book I Was Eva Diamant, with passages read by Dalia Kienapfel, a Goethe International Charter School student.
The event resonated with my own life. Growing up in post-war Germany, in a family where the war’s shadows were silently present, and the Holocaust could not be openly discussed, I understood the weight of remembrance — a theme I explore in my memoir, Freeing Rapunzel.
During the event, we explored how these lives intersect and what they teach about responsibility and the urgency of Never Again Is Now. Hatred, antisemitism, and hostility toward those perceived as “other” are rising again. History may not repeat exactly, but it follows recognizable patterns. Bearing witness is an act of responsibility.
By listening to Mary and Joe and learning about Eva through Stephanie’s book, we created a space of connection, reflection, and quiet healing — a first-time collaboration that brought the past and present together in a shared, unforgettable moment.
Here are some impressions from this extraordinary evening.
Speech Introduction „Never Again Is Now”
Introduction to evening and theme
Good evening and welcome to our special event, Never Again Is Now.
We are honored tonight by the presence of distinguished guests from civic life, cultural institutions, and our broader community. We are especially pleased that this evening marks the first collaboration between the Wende Museum and Goethe International Charter School, a school that educates internationally minded, multilingual students to become engaged global citizens who think critically, engage with history, and act with empathy and integrity. Guided by the principles of the International Baccalaureate, the school encourages students to stand against hate and work toward positive change in the world.
Thank you for being here and for standing with us—in remembrance and with a shared sense of responsibility.
My name is Anne-Christine Witzgall, and I’ll be guiding you through this evening.
Never Again Is Now.
These words come from a speech given by Holocaust survivor Eva Szepesi before the German Parliament in Berlin in 2024. They are not a slogan. They are a warning-and a call. A reminder that history does not remain safely in the past.When hatred, exclusion, and dehumanization return to public language and political life, memory becomes urgent.
I was born in West Berlin, five years after the Wall had been built – one of the many consequences of Germany’s defeat in the Second World War. As a young teenager, I learned about the Holocaust through books my grandmother gave me and through school. Still, I could not understand how such an atrocity had been possible. To understand that, we have to look earlier.
Germany entered both world wars with a belief in strength and superiority. After World War I, many Germans felt humiliated by defeat, impoverished by the Treaty of Versailles, and consumed by resentment. Into this climate stepped Adolf Hitler, promising restoration, pride, and revenge. He claimed he would make Germany great again. For many ordinary Germans – including my father – this message resonated. My father’s own father had been killed in World War I, listed as missing in action. My grandmother never recovered from that loss and had to raise my father alone when he was only three years old. Like so many others, he carried this unresolved grief – and Hitler gave that grief a target.
The Holocaust did not begin with gas chambers. It began with words. With exclusion. And with silence.
As the Nazis well understood, lies repeated often enough can begin to feel like truth – until an entire society adjusts its moral compass. That danger has not disappeared.
Very early on, Jews were blamed for Germany’s defeat and its hardships. Through propaganda, they were dehumanized. Then came laws that stripped them of their rights, the Night of Broken Glass, the yellow star, deportations, and finally mass murder. Auschwitz became the largest killing center, where 1.1 million people were murdered—nearly 960,000 of them Jews.
I grew up in postwar Germany in a family where the war was still silently and unconsciously present, and where the Holocaust was not something we could speak about openly at home. My father’s ambivalence shaped that silence. More broadly, Germans struggled for a long time to face what had happened in the Third Reich and to live with the moral weight of that past. (Picture: Fall of the Berlin Wall) When the Wall came down in 1989 peacefully, it felt as though a small but important space opened—a space in which speaking about the Holocaust, and about what had happened, slowly became possible. Even so, it took me many years to find my own voice. It was only through writing my memoir, and through my studies on collective trauma with Thomas Hübl, that I began to break that long-held silence and to reflect on the quiet but lasting effects of transgenerational trauma on my generation and the generations to come.
Today, Never Again Is Now feels painfully timely. Antisemitism, bigotry, and hatred are once again on the rise—often normalized, often minimized. History does not repeat itself exactly, but it follows recognizable patterns. That is why tonight matters. Through Stephanie’s work, and through Mary Bauer’s testimony, we are reminded of what happens when hatred goes unchallenged—and why bearing witness is not only about remembering the past, but about how we respond in the present, and how we choose to shape what comes next.