JTA — In Amsterdam in the years after World War II, Karin Prien’s parents’ bookshelves were lined with the works of Jewish authors like Philip Roth, Saul Bellow and Isaac Bashevis Singer. When she was a young child and her family moved from the vibrant and multicultural city of Amsterdam to Neuwied, a small town in Rhineland, their Jewish social life dwindled. In Germany, her mother was afraid to publicly declare her Jewish roots in the country that perpetrated the Holocaust.

Fast forward five decades, and Prien is now a federal minister with the Christian Democratic Union in the German parliament, and one of the most powerful politicians in Germany. She is also the first person with Jewish ancestry to head a German ministry since WWII.

“The fact that I’m a person with a Jewish biography is something unusual in Germany,” Prien told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency at a reception in New York this month. “It’s not normal.”

Now she is in line for another first: She has also emerged as a possible frontrunner as the successor to Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier in the 2027 election.

Should Prien win the presidential election, she would be the first person with Jewish ancestry at the head of the German state. Distinct from the chancellorship, the federal president is a primarily ceremonial but still significant role.

“The development of the German-Jewish friendship we have today, some people describe it as a miracle,” she said. “But still, there is a lack of normalcy in the relationship between German Jews and non-Jewish Germans. I think it’s something special when a Jewish person, or a person with a Jewish biography, is in a leading political position in Germany.”

A staunch believer in liberal democracy and a supporter of Israel at a time when faith in both are declining, Prien represents the liberal wing of the center-right CDU as the minister for education, family affairs, senior citizens, women and youth.

“It would be a very strong symbol if a Jewish person would become president of Germany in 2027,” Prien said.

Prien, 61, was born in Amsterdam. Both her maternal and paternal grandfathers were Jewish Holocaust survivors. She identifies as a person of “Jewish biography.” Neither her maternal grandmother nor her paternal........

© The Times of Israel