And thus I say: We fight antisemitism! We resist the poison that is nationalism! We protect Jewish life! We stand with Israel! This Germany will only live up to itself, if it lives up to its historical responsibility time and again. This responsibility was woven into the very fabric of the Federal Republic of Germany from day one since it’s foundation. That is why there must not and there cannot be an end to remembrance. But it is the same evil.Īnd there remains only one answer: Never again! Nie wieder! I cannot say that – when only a thick wooden door prevents a right wing terrorist from causing a massacre, a bloodbath in a synagogue in the city of Halle on Yom Kippur (2019). I cannot say that – when crude antisemitism is cloaked in supposed criticism of Israeli policy. I cannot say that – when Jewish children are spat on in the schoolyard. I wish I could say that we Germans have learnt from history once and for all.īut I cannot say that – when hatred is spreading. The spirits of evil are emerging in a new guise, presenting their antisemitic, racist, authoritarian thinking as an answer for the future, a new solution to the problems of our age. But sometimes it seems as though we understand the past better than the present. I stand before you, grateful for this miracle or reconciliation, and I wish I could say that our remembrance has made us immune to evil. By this, dear friends, you should measure us. We want to live up to our responsibility. Germany’s responsibility does not expire. Yet at the same time, my heart is filled with gratitude for the hands of the survivors stretched out to us, for the new trust given to us by people in Israel and across the world, for Jewish life flourishing in Germany.Īnd let me also say this: The Eternal Flame at Yad Vashem or in other places of remembrance does not go out. The terrible war, which cost far more than 50 million lives, it originated from my country.ħ7 years after the liberation of Auschwitz, I stand before you all as Consul General of Germany – I stand here laden with the heavy, historical burden of guilt. The industrial mass murder of six million Jews, the worst crime in the history of humanity, it was committed by my countrymen. Those who murdered, those who planned and helped in the murdering, the many who silently toed the line: They were Germans. And I bow in deepest sorrow.Īnd this also must be said here: The perpetrators were human beings. I read their names and hear their story and learn about so many other stories, will learn another one in our talk with a Holocaust survivor later today. I, too, stand here today as a human being – and as a German. And as human beings, they live with many others in our memory. They did not succeed to erase the memory of them. Germans tried to dehumanize them, to reduce them to numbers, to erase all memory of them in the extermination camps. Germans burned numbers on their forearms. She wrote: „I regret from the very depth of my soul that, on departing, I did not realise the importance of the moment, (.) that I did not hug you tightly, never releasing from your arms.“ In the bitter cold of January, Ida wrote her last letter to her parents: They were deported from the Chisinau ghetto. Live’s like that of Ida Goldish and her three year-old son Vili. And today we are reminded of their lives – each individual life. Today we are reminded of their sufferings. Today we remember and we mourn the victims of the Shoah. What a blessing, what a gift it is for me to be able to speak to you here today at this beautiful and solemn place - the Legion of Honor. „Blessed be the Lord for enabling me to be here at this day!“ (Prayer from the Book of Baruch) If (slot) slot.addService(googletag.Speech by German Consul General Oliver Schramm at the Legion of Honorĭear colleagues, friends and participants of today’s Remembrance ceremony, (function (a, d, o, r, i, c, u, p, w, m) The Holocaust Remembrance Day siren and stubborn Israeli politics - Israel News - The Jerusalem Post
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