Tali Nates makes history on receiving the Goethe Medal

Holocaust educator Tali Nates founded the Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre (JHGC) in 2008. Now, Germany, the country that led the systematic murder of six million Jews during World War II, has awarded her the Goethe-Institut’s Goethe Medal, making her the first South African to receive it.

Nates, the executive director of the JHGC, will be awarded the Goethe Medal, the most important award in Germany’s foreign cultural policy, on 28 August by the president of the Goethe-Institut, Carola Lentz. The award isn’t just for founding the JHGC, but also for contributing to the fields of Holocaust and genocide education, dialogue, and memory in South Africa, Africa, and globally.

The Goethe Medal ceremony will take place in Weimar, the city which hosted the constituent assembly that established the Weimar Republic, Germany’s government from 1919 until the rise of Nazi Germany in 1933.

Weimar is also the home of the poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic widely regarded as the greatest and most influential writer in the German language, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, whom the Goethe-Institut and medal is named after.

Nates previously received an Absa Jewish Achiever Award, the Czech Republic’s Gratias Agit Award, and the Austrian Holocaust Memorial Award, but being awarded the Goethe Medal “really took [her] by surprise”, she says.

“It’s a famous and distinguished award. When you see all those wonderful, deserving people who have won it from all around the world – from [seven-time Grammy-winning pianist and conductor] Daniel Barenboim, [international best-selling author] John le Carré, and so on – the first reaction was disbelief, then great excitement. I was so humbled and honoured, not only for me, but for everyone who made this centre possible and for everyone pouring their hearts into this important work.”

Since 1955, the Goethe-Institut has awarded the Goethe Medal annually as an official decoration of the Federal Republic of Germany. It honours global public figures who have rendered outstanding services to the teaching of the German language and to international cultural exchange.

In November 2021, the Goethe-Institut called Nates to say its jury had chosen her as one of the four cultural notables to receive the award in 2022, the others being visual artist Mohamed Abla, and the artists of the Sandbox Collective, Nimi Ravindran and Shiva Pathak.

“What!” Nates responded in disbelief. “Sorry, can you repeat?”

“Yes, yes, you’ve won it,” the Goethe-Institut replied. “You have to keep it quiet because the actual announcement is happening only in 2022.”

When the award was officially announced in May, Nates says, “I was allowed to tell the world, my board of trustees, and all the supporters.”

Nates said the award recognises the JHGC’s “innovative way of looking at the past to make connections to today’s world. That’s why we are different to other institutes in the way we do it constantly with conferences, workshops, new projects, and so on.”

She says German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock will speak about her and the other three recipients. “I had a wonderful meeting with her speech writer to share some of my stories,” Nates sayes. “It’s a great honour. She’s Germany’s first woman foreign minister, and her past actions and standing as a new foreign minister is inspirational.”

In addition to Baerbock, Nates is also “looking forward to meeting many other dignitaries, mayors, presidents, and so on”.

The European Union special representative for the Horn of Africa and conflict researcher, Annette Weber, will give a laudatory speech about Nates. “She’s also famous in her own right because of her expertise in Africa,” Nates says.

Nates will also speak for a few minutes. “Apart from saying thank you, I will speak about my own history as a daughter of a survivor who was saved by a German, Oskar Schindler, a member of the Nazi party. Besides the rescue, perpetration, and the killing of the rest of the family, I will connect to the lessons I learned from this personal history about the importance of creating centres such as ours to connect the past and the present and learn lessons for humanity.”

A six-minute film will be shown about Nates and the JHGC. “A filmmaker filmed me and schools coming here, interviewed teachers, and Holocaust survivor Irene Klass,” Nates says.

The daughter of Polish parents, her mother leaving the country before World War II, Nates grew up interested in history, studying the subject first at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Having emigrated to South Africa with her husband at the end of 1985 to study further at the University of the Witwatersrand, Nates went on to establish the JHGC in 2008 from a remote office.

“We would go to schools and do all our activities in partnership with other museums and centres,” she recalls. “In 2016, we moved into the specially built JHGC centre, courtesy of a partnership with the City of Johannesburg. Then we established a permanent exhibition before officially opening every aspect of the building in March 2019.”

Besides opening the centre, other memorable moments for Nates include being at the opening of the memorial and museum at the Belzec death camp, where most of her father’s family were murdered; being invited by Marlene Bethlehem to facilitate an impactful workshop for women in August 2004; and visiting her father’s home town in Poland.

Photo credit: Jono David of the HaChayim HaYehudim Jewish Photo Library