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History Is Not a Weapon Our Responsibility Does Not Expire

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History Is Not a Weapon Our Responsibility Does Not Expire March 2020 The German Times – 75 Years of Peace 11 SHUTTERSTOCK.COM/JULIANO GALVAO GOMES Rail entrance to the concentration camp at Auschwitz II-Birkenau. Our responsibility does not expire “Blessed be the Lord for enabling me to be here at this day” ment. I read their names. I hear their stories. And stretched out to us, for the new trust given to us by fabric of the Federal Republic of Germany from day THE SPEECH GIVEN BY GERMAN I bow in deepest sorrow. Samuel and Rega, Ida and people in Israel and across the world, for Jewish life one. But it tests us here and now. PRESIDENT FRANK-WALTER STEINMEIER Vili were human beings. flourishing in Germany. My soul is moved by the This Germany will only live up to itself, if it lives AT YAD VASHEM And this also must be said here: The perpetrators spirit of reconciliation, this spirit which opened up up to its historical responsibility. We fight anti- were human beings. They were Germans. Those a new and peaceful path for Germany and Israel, for Semitism! We resist the poison that is nationalism! hat a blessing, what a gift, it is for me who murdered, those who planned and helped in Germany, Europe and the countries of the world. We protect Jewish life! We stand with Israel! to be able to speak to you here today at the murdering, the many who silently toed the line: The Eternal Flame at Yad Vashem does not go Here at Yad Vashem, I renew this promise before WYad Vashem. Here at Yad Vashem burns They were Germans. out. Germany’s responsibility does not expire. We the eyes of the world. And I know that I am not the Eternal Flame in remembrance of the victims of The industrial mass murder of six million Jews, want to live up to our responsibility. By this, dear alone. Today we join together to say: No to anti- the Shoah. This place reminds us of their suffering. the worst crime in the history of humanity, it was friends, you should measure us. Semitism! No to hatred! The suffering of millions. And it reminds us of their committed by my countrymen. The terrible war, I stand before you, grateful for this miracle of rec- From the horror of Auschwitz, the world learned lives – each individual life. which cost far more than 50 million lives, it origi- onciliation, and I wish I could say that our remem- lessons once before. The nations of the world built This place remembers Samuel Tytelman, a keen nated from my country. brance has made us immune to evil. an order of peace, founded upon human rights and swimmer who won competitions for Maccabi Seventy-five years after the liberation of Aus- Yes, we Germans remember. But sometimes it seems international law. We Germans are committed to Warsaw, and his little sister Rega, who helped her chwitz, I stand before you all as President of Ger- as though we understand the past better than the this order and we want to defend it, with all of you. mother prepare the family meal for Sabbath. many – I stand here laden with the heavy, historical present. The spirits of evil are emerging in a new Because this we know: Peace can be destroyed, and This place remembers Ida Goldish and her three- burden of guilt. Yet at the same time, my heart is guise, presenting their anti-Semitic, racist, authoritar- people can be corrupted. year-old son Vili. In October, they were deported filled with gratitude for the hands of the survivors ian thinking as an answer for the future, a new solution Esteemed Heads of State and Government, I am from the Chisinau ghetto. In the bitter cold of Janu- to the problems of our age. I wish I could say that we grateful that together we make this commitment ary, Ida wrote her last letter to her parents: “I regret Germans have learnt from history once and for all. today: A world that remembers the Holocaust. A from the very depth of my soul that, on departing, I But I cannot say that when hatred is spreading. I world without genocide. did not realize the importance of the moment, [...] cannot say that when Jewish children are spat on in “Who knows if we will ever hear again the magical that I did not hug you tightly, never releasing you the schoolyard, I cannot say that when crude anti- sound of life? Who knows if we can weave ourselves from my arms.” Semitism is cloaked in supposed criticism of Israeli into eternity – who knows?” PICTURE ALLIANCE / PHOTOSHOT Germans deported them. Germans burned num- policy. I cannot say that when only a thick wooden Salmen Gradowski wrote these lines in Auschwitz bers on their forearms. Germans tried to dehuman- door prevents a right-wing terrorist from causing a and buried them in a tin can under a crematorium. ize them, to reduce them to numbers, to erase all massacre, a bloodbath in a synagogue in the city of Here at Yad Vashem they are woven into eternity: memory of them in the extermination camps. Halle on Yom Kippur. Salmen Gradowski, Samuel and Rega Tytelman, Ida They did not succeed. Of course, our age is a different age. The words and Vili Goldish and so many others. They were Samuel and Rega, Ida and Vili were human beings. are not the same. The perpetrators are not the all murdered. Their lives were lost to unfettered And as human beings, they live on in our memory. same. But it is the same evil. hatred. But our remembrance of them will defeat Yad Vashem gives them, as it says in the Book of And there remains only one answer: Never again! the abyss. And our actions will defeat hatred. German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier at the Isaiah, “a monument and a name.” Fifth World Holocaust Forum “Remembering the Nie wieder! By this, I stand. For this, I hope. I, too, stand before this monument as a human Holocaust: Fighting Anti-Semitism,” Yad Vashem That is why there cannot be an end to remem- “Blessed be the Lord for enabling me to be here being – and as a German. I stand before their monu- in Jerusalem, Jan. 23, 2020 brance. This responsibility was woven into the very at this day.” History is not a weapon Germany’s president delivered a valuable and nuanced speech in the Bundestag remembrance for a younger generation. This new German Bundestag was beyond question. He also Merkel. This was the case, he argued, even though BY WOLFGANG BENZ generation wants to know what the past has to do pointed out that there are, in fact, non-democratic she had deep reservations about the policies of the with their lives today, he explained, and they are forces present in Parliament today. Steinmeier noted current Israeli government and even disliked the he speech given by German President Frank- right to ask the question. that völkisch and nativist ways of thinking, stagnant prime minister. Still, he noted, there could be no Walter Steinmeier in the Bundestag on the It is now widely accepted that the way to reach nationalism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism are on doubt about her pro-Israeli stance. T2020 Day of Remembrance for the Victims subsequent generations is not by erecting more the rise again, and that a new wave of politicians is Of course, a former Israeli ambassador can say of National Socialism was notable for three reasons: memorials. This fact is well-known among those now slogging the very phrases that led to catastro- many things that others might no longer have the it was moving, it represented the very best of what who are now calling for new forms of approaching phe in the 1930s. courage to utter for fear of being tagged an anti- statesmanship can achieve and it delivered rhetoric and processing history, rather than standing idly by In the most important message of his speech, Semite. This label has long been the ultima ratio that was entirely fitting for the occasion. Instead and watching the emergence of a new nationaliza- Steinmeier warned that history must not be allowed used by excited moralists, by those individuals suf- of limiting himself to the well-worn ritual of utter- tion of memory. to become a weapon. This implies that we should fering from a justified degree of shame and guilt, ing the words “Never again!,” Steinmeier spoke of Of course, the erection of historical memorials as consider it counterproductive if and when anti- by those naïve and malicious sectarians hoping for Germany’s friendship with Israel and his gratitude reminders of the past and warnings about the present Semitism is used as the ultimate reproach by one reconciliation, and by those who demand blind, for the Israeli President’s presence in the Bundestag remains a fully honorable act. This is especially true person to silence another. Indeed, the invocation of unconditional allegiance to Israel. Any real friend to on that day. in Berlin, the city in which the horrors that befell the the term “anti-Semitism” has become a thought-ter- Israel – a country that faces threats from many sides His commemoration also included remembrance civilian population of almost all European nations in minating cliché in the struggle for sovereignty over at once – would do well to wish it supporters wiser of other victims of National Socialism – groups that the 20th century were planned and set forth. the politico-cultural narrative and correct political than such zealots.
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