Widen the Circle Berlin Fellowship 2025

Welcome to Widen the Circle's Berlin Fellowship! We are looking forward to the week we will spend together in Germany exploring issues that are central to understanding collective memory and the ways in which German and American societies have attempted to reconcile with their respective troubled pasts.

We have created an itinerary that will help the group understand Germany's history and how this history has been—and continues to be—dealt with on the local and national levels. (And we will continue to revise the itinerary and build upon it.) During our time together, we will hear from experts and visit some large, well-established sites that will give us important context. Many of the presenters you will be meeting have been involved with Widen the Circle and the Berlin Fellowship for the last few years. Your peers in this group have incredible skills, and your expertise will be integrated throughout the program in a stimulating, collaborative learning experience.

While engaging in these bigger conversations, we will also take time to focus on close-to-the-ground, unique local projects initiated by Obermayer Award winners. We will explore how Germany's efforts—from the broad national attempts as well as the small personal efforts to confront its past—have shaped German society, and continue to shape it at the current moment. We see how these efforts impact Germany’s growing Jewish community, increasingly diverse population, and Germany's geopolitical position in modern Europe and the world. We will take time to process this information and consider the applications of these lessons in a U.S. context.

We have created this information resource to share key details about the Berlin Fellowship trip. In the meantime, read through this webpage, ask us questions, and get yourself prepared for a rewarding week of exploration and discovery.

Preliminary Schedule 

• The following is a day by day overview of the week we’ll be spending together. Please note that it is subject to updates before departure. 

• We’d like to take a moment to again convey the collaborative nature of this program. Weaved throughout the agenda are expert talks, participant-facilitated sessions, and group debriefings that will bring together all of your voices in what we hope is a truly inclusive and enlightening experience. The facilitators are actively working to craft a space for learning that is specifically prepared with our group in mind, as well as flexible and responsive enough to accommodate the conversations and ideas we have yet to explore together. 

Wednesday, June 11th: Arrival Day—Welcome to Berlin!

• Willkommen! At 4pm, we’ll go on a short walking tour of the neighborhood around the hotel (which has important historical significance for the goals of the program). With the aim of getting our bearings, we’ll visit the Museum Island and the Hackescher Höfe. Please meet in the lobby at 3:45pm. We will end the day with dinner at the CapVin restaurant (if you are not going on the tour, please meet Rebecca in the hotel lobby at 6pm sharp to walk to the restaurant).

Thursday, June 12th: Let’s get started! Orientation and Introductions. 

• Start time: 9:30am in the lobby.

• On our first full day, we’ll get started with a general orientation, which will include contracting, a detailed look at the agenda, and time for participants to get to know each other. Over lunch we’ll have an overview talk that will provide historical context to the conversation about memory culture in Germany. 

• In the afternoon we’ll stretch our legs and take a walking tour of the Jewish Quarter, deepening our understanding of Jewish life in Berlin before, during, and after the Holocaust. We’ll end at a local restaurant for a group dinner.

• Approximate end time: 8:00pm

Friday, June 13th: Memorials and sites of remembrance (and reflection) in modern Germany. 

• Start time: 8:45am

• In the morning we’ll visit the Reichstag and a number of memorials and important locations in the city center, including those dedicated to the Jewish, Roma and Sinti, and homosexual communities. Together we’ll see what physical memorial culture looks like in modern Germany, and gain an intimate understanding of what it took to arrive at this point. 

• The afternoon will provide time for debriefing and a chance to check in with each other as a group. 

• The day will end with an opportunity to socialize as a group and meet some of Widen the Circle’s German network members while getting a taste for contemporary Jewish life in Berlin.

• Approximate end time: 8:30pm

Saturday, June 14th: Grassroots engagement with history and a special evening with the Widen the Circle Network. 

• Start time: 8:45am

• In the morning we’ll meet a diverse group of high school students and alumni who will show us a deportation site and community memorial they helped establish. We’ll join the Widen the Circle Network and the students for a presentation and exploration of this memorial site before having the chance to meet and exchange with the students over lunch.

• After a chance to debrief back at the hotel, we will spend the evening at the Widen the Circle Summer Forum for the keynote presentation in Neukölln. We’ll dine together with the participants from around Germany, engaging with members of the network and giving you the opportunity to interact with many of them in a friendly exchange.

• Approximate end time: 9:30pm

Sunday, June 15th: WtC Summer Forum workshops

• Start time: 9:30am

• Today we’ll join workshops at the Summer Forum, once again mixing with the participants and presenters (including some from our program), who will share their expertise and experiences with us.

• We will end the day with an afternoon group debrief at the hotel.

• Free evening (approximately from 6pm).

Monday, June 16th: Germany beyond the big cities - experiencing Saxony. 

• Start time: 7:45am

• This morning we will depart the hotel to catch an early train to Saxony (ca. 90 minutes in transit), visiting NDK (Network for Democratic Culture) in the small town of Wurzen, organized by one of our groups German fellows. 

• We will spend the day learning about their work, the challenges they face as a small organization in the former east Germany, and taking a deep dive into some of the realities of memory work at the grassroots level outside of the big cities.

• Evening return to Berlin by train.

• Approximate end time (arrival at hotel): 10:00pm

Tuesday, June 17th: Memory work in action. 

• Start time: 9:00am

• On our penultimate program day, we’ll spend the morning in a former Jewish neighborhood in west Berlin. We will have the chance to visit the Löknitz School, and learn about their innovative memory work that takes place in site, a project that inspired Bryan Stevenson during a visit to Germany many years ago. 

• In the afternoon we’ll visit the House of the Wannsee Conference, the site of the meeting where senior Nazi officials organized the “Final Solution” to murder the Jews of Europe in 1942. Our visit will demonstrate how a site of monumental importance can be designed to help visitors connect this complex history with German identity and contemporary social issues.

• Free evening (approximately from 7pm).

Wednesday, June 18th: Working with the past, towards a better future. Closing remarks. 

• Start time: 9:00am

• During our final day together we’ll meet with  2024 Obermayer winner and Afro-German historian Katharina Oguntoye, learning about how she connects her history work with social activism, and the opportunities that exist to expand the scope of our work into the future. 

• As we conclude our program, we’ll set aside time to discuss what we’ve learned together and how it might influence our work when we return home. 

• After some free time we’ll come together for a final celebratory dinner before saying our goodbyes.

• Approximate end time: 9:30pm

Thursday, June 19th

• Depart independently, no official programming. Auf Wiedersehen!

Guiding Questions

The Berlin Fellowship will be structured around four core questions. They are the touchstones that we will return to throughout the trip, allowing us to explore the connections between Germany and the United States, as well as how each country has confronted history and memory.

• Role of remembrance: What roles do history and remembrance play in today’s Germany and in the U.S., and what are effective strategies for putting the two histories in conversation with one another? 

• Impact of local projects: How have local projects created by individuals and groups throughout Germany and the U.S. confronted the past, kept memory alive, and contributed to healing from such profound historic injustice, helping to fight against bigotry and against those who resist the idea of remembering?

• From remembering to action: How do we go from remembering to action, and how do we take advantage of remembrance at the present moment to collectively create robust responses to the challenges we face? 

• Present climate: In the present political climate in the U.S. and Germany, how do we refine our strategies for doing this work, and how do we think about self-care?

Media List

Below is a list of books, articles, and media that we feel are important resources towards preparing for our program together. We understand that you have a limited amount of time before we come together in June, so we’ve gone ahead and focused our required media to four items supplemented by a series of shorter reads, plenty of interesting podcasts, and even a few YouTube videos.

The first item we’ve chosen to highlight is Chapter 7 from Learning from the Germans by Susan Neiman. This piece touches on several of the themes we’re focusing on. Neiman’s is the best known book in the U.S. on many of the cross currents we will be discussing. We think reading the whole book is a good idea if you have time (There is also a great audio version of the book available). That said, we'd like to note that there are many differing opinions on aspects of remembrance culture, and this is just one we will explore.

Another article we would like you to look at discusses German memory culture. “What is Memory Culture?: Look at the process, not the outcome” by historian and author Jenny Wüstenberg, in Goethe Institut. This short piece squarely focuses on the critical role local activists in Germany played in reckoning with the past as they created a decentralized “landscape of memory.” As we will see, many of these activists are Obermayer Awardees.

The third item we’ve chosen aims to elucidate the growing war on memory that we are seeing in the U.S. The New York Times article, “Trump Calls on Smithsonian Institution to Promote ‘American Greatness’,” documents President Trump’s executive order to reshape the Smithsonian Institution by promoting a more positive view of American history while criticizing what he sees as a “revisionist movement” that portrays the nation’s past negatively. His directive seeks to limit funding for exhibitions that address race, gender, and other complex historical narratives, favoring a focus on “American greatness.”

Lastly, Germany’s 80 year post-war history has largely been shaped by its dedication to democratic principles and a growing commitment to remembering its past. But a recent surge in far-right ideologies that aim to diminish, relativize, or even deny the Holocaust is challenging support, funding, and prioritization of remembrance work in parts of Germany. This 12 minute film by Deutsche Welle (DW) describes the climate for this work and what remembrance activists face in Germany today.

From there, we’d encourage you to take a look at the remainder of the content we’ve collected for you, all of which is sorted into three broad areas of focus, and one that specifically relates to our organization. We’ve tried to display them in order of importance, with the most pertinent on top.

On Monday of our program week, we’ll visit fellow Melanie Haller’s organization in Wurzen. Ahead of that visit, we recommend watching a film her team produced about their work. It offers a clear and compelling introduction to their mission and the challenges they face in confronting the far-right. The film is available on YouTube and can be downloaded to watch while traveling or during downtime.

Any questions, urgent curiosities or requests for further recommendations can be directed towards Bryan and Rebecca.

• Present day Germany and contemporary issues

  • Article — “Elon Musk's call for Germany to 'move beyond' Nazi guilt is dangerous, Holocaust memorial chair says” from NBC News, 2025: After Elon Musk’s repeated endorsement of Germany's far-right AfD party and his remarks that downplay the country's Nazi past, the chairman of Israel's Holocaust memorial criticized him, calling it an insult to Holocaust victims and a threat to Germany's democratic future.

  • Article — “Israel and the delusions of Germany’s ‘memory culture’” The Guardian, 2025: Germany's complex post-WWII relationship with Israel and its own history of guilt and memory culture is marked by a paradox of philosemitism, political expediency, and the resurgence of far-right nationalism, which complicates its stance on both the Holocaust and contemporary issues like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

  • Article — “Berlin Was a Beacon of Artistic Freedom. Gaza Changed Everything” from The New York Times, 2024: This article gives some insight into the complexities of the current moment politically and culturally in Berlin, as the implications of Germany's history and memory culture reverberate through the city's renowned arts scene.

  • Podcast — Day X, Part 2: “In the Stomach” from The New York Times, 2021: About a right wing officer in the German army who planned a series of assassinations. This part explores antisemitism and the growth of neo-Nazis via the life of one of his targets, leading human rights activist Anetta Kahane.

  • Article — “No Place for Hate: Jens-Christian Wagner” EVZ Foundation, 2023: Prof. Dr. Jens-Christian Wagner links rising attacks on memorial sites to the political shift rightward and stresses the need for democratic parties to oppose extreme-right narratives and promote historical awareness.

  • Podcast — Mention the war: Germany awakes In The Intelligence, The Economist, 2022: Further exploration of the many ways in which Germany is changing in the wake of the start of the crisis in Ukraine.  

• German-Jewish History and the Holocaust

  • Article — “How Hitler Dismantled a Democracy in 53 Days” by Timothy W. Ryback from The Atlantic, 2025: The article provides a detailed, step-by-step account of how Adolf Hitler, upon his appointment as Chancellor in January 1933, systematically dismantled Germany’s democratic structures through legal means, highlighting the political contingencies that enabled his rise to dictatorial power.

  • Article — “Monuments To The Unthinkable" by Clint Smith from The Atlantic, 2022: Clint Smith explores how nations can memorialize their atrocities, visiting Germany to understand how the country has come to terms with its past, and considering how these lessons might be applied in the US. Smith followed this up with a podcast on Radio Atlantic called “How Germany Remembers the Holocaust,” which we would also recommend listening to after having read the article.

  • Podcast — Being Jewish in Germany — What does that look like as the country marks 1,700 years of Jewish life? From KCRW Common Ground Berlin, 2021: Marking 1700 years since the arrival of the first Jews in Germany, a series of interviews with young people shines light on the state of the community in modern Germany.  One of those interviewed in this podcast will be a speaker at the 2024 Widen the Circle Summer Forum we will attend on Saturday night.

  • Book — The Holocaust: A New History, by Laurence Rees, 2017: Provides a sweeping overview of the Holocaust that is useful for anyone looking for some foundational history. 

  • Book — Learning from the Germans: Race and the Memory of Evil, by Susan Neiman, 2019: Explores perspectives on how a country can come to terms with its historical wrongdoings. Neiman is a white woman who came of age in the civil rights-era South, and a Jewish woman who has spent much of her adult life in Berlin. (*Ch.7 is required reading)

  • Book – The Holocaust: an Unfinished History, by Dan Stone, 2024: Spanning the entirety of the Holocaust. Stone reveals how the idea of 'industrial murder' is incomplete, and he outlines the depth of collaboration across Europe, arguing persuasively that we need to stop thinking of the Holocaust as an exclusively German project. He also considers the nature of trauma the Holocaust engendered, and why Jewish suffering has yet to be fully reckoned with. And he makes clear that the kernel to understanding Nazi thinking and action is genocidal ideology, providing a deep analysis of its origins.

• American History and Memory

  • Article — “Republicans Tear Down a Black Lives Matter Mural,” from The Atlantic, 2025: The removal of the Black Lives Matter Plaza mural in Washington, D.C., highlights the shifting political landscape under President Trump’s return to office, underscoring the vulnerability of racial justice and history work under the current administration despite its past acts of defiance during the racial justice protests of 2020.

  • Video — “Fomenting Antisemitism” SubStack, 2025: Timothy Snyder argues that recent efforts to defund American higher education under the guise of fighting antisemitism are themselves antisemitic, misusing the term as a political tool and undermining its true meaning.

  • Article — “Bryan Stevenson Reclaims the Monument, in the Heart of the Deep South” from The New Yorker, 2024: A piece on civil-rights attorney Bryan Stevenson’s new Freedom Monument Sculpture Park, which aims to show the realities of enslavement on a monumental scale.

  • Video — “Why All Americans Should Honor Juneteenth" from Vox, 2020: Explores the true story behind Juneteenth, highlighting the delayed emancipation of enslaved people in Texas and why understanding this history is essential to recognizing slavery’s lasting impact on America.

  • Video — “Alabama sculpture park evokes history of slavery.” CBS Sunday Morning, 2024: A visual visit to the Equal Justice Institute’s Freedom Monument Sculpture Park in Montgomery, AL, a powerful 17-acre site featuring nearly 50 sculptures by renowned artists.

  • Article — “How cuts and $1 payment limits are making federal jobs harder” NPR, 2025: Federal spending cuts and job reductions at the U.S. Department of the Interior are severely impacting conservation efforts, public safety, and scientific research, creating chaos and uncertainty among employees and threatening the future of key environmental programs.

  • Article/Video — “Trump administration's potential sale of historic civil rights site sparks outrage” ABC 3340, 2025: Highlights the Trump administration's proposal to sell or close over 400 federal properties, including the Montgomery Bus Station and the Freedom Rides Museum, highlights the threat facing historically significant civil rights landmarks.

  • Book — The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story, Ch. 10 by Bryan Stevenson, 2021 (focus on pgs. 275-283): Demonstrates how mass incarceration can be traced to the legacy of slavery due to a loophole in the 13th Amendment.

  • Book — How The Word Is Passed: A Reckoning With The History Of Slavery by Clint Smith, 2021: Exploration of the ways we talk about (and avoid talking about) slavery; blends reporting and deep critical thinking about history and memory.

  • Book — Caste: The origins of our discontents by Isabel Wilkerson, 2020: (focus on “Part 2 — The Arbitrary Destruction of Human Divisions,” Ch. 4–9.) Looks at U.S. and Nazi Germany as caste systems. Focus chapters delve into what Nazis learned from racist caste system in the U.S.

  • Documentary — 13TH on Netflix by Ava Duvernay & Jason Morgan, 2016: Documentary analyzes the systemic criminalization of African Americans and the U.S. prison boom.

• Widen the Circle & the Obermayer Awards

  • Article — Widen the Circle, “The Obermayer Awards: A Brief History”: A one-page account of how the Obermayer Awards came to be.

  • Article — “Obermayer Awards overcome silence with stories of German-Jewish history” from The Christian Science Monitor, 2016: Arthur Obermayer's German Jewish history awards bring forgotten lives to light, personalizing the past to heal communities today.

About Widen the Circle

Widen the Circle works with people uncovering local history, history related to trauma and injustice, and using the lessons of that history to create a more just world today.

We believe that exposing local history related to hate and injustice — history told through the lens of community — is a powerful way to help individuals acknowledge and address that injustice today.

 Our goal is to increase the impact of work being done at the grassroots level — community by community — by remarkable individuals and organizations in Germany and the United States.

“Every day, the haters and the aggressors of this world get the headlines in the newspapers. But that’s not the whole story. There are so many people full of love and tenderness and compassion and passion who try to do the right things, who try to make things right for the world. And who stand up every day against prejudice and hate.” — Gabriele Hannah, Obermayer Award winner