AanspraakAfdeling Verzetsdeelnemers en Oorlogsgetroffenen December 2019 Speaker at the ‘Auschwitz Never Again’ Lecture 2020 Federal President of Germany (2012-2017) Joachim Gauck makes a plea for tolerance Contents Page 4 Speaking for your benefit. Page 5-8 Speaker at the ‘Auschwitz Never Again’ Lecture 2020. Federal President of Germany (2012-2017) Joachim Gauck makes a plea for tolerance. Photo’s Joachim Gauck by J. Denzel-S.Kugler. Page 9-12 ‘That fateful moment changed the course of my life forever.’ Civilian war victim Margriet Cellissen-Huskens still suffers daily the consequences of being hit by shrapnel during the liberation. Page 13-16 ‘The sun was setting and we walked out of our street with our suitcases in our hands.’ Sonia Melviez-Hildesheim was a child when she and her parents fled from Brussels to the Dutch East Indies. Aanspraak - December 2019 - 2 Page 17 Reduction to percentage on income from assets. Page 18 Questions and answers. No rights may be derived from this text. Translation: SVB, Amstelveen. Aanspraak - December 2019 - 3 Speaking for your benefit In the Netherlands we are now celebrating 75 Moreover, how do we guarantee freedom and years of freedom, along with many other countries. tolerance towards minorities in a democracy? This Determined not to have to go through such a is the subject of our discussion in this edition with terrible war again, we came together to draw up a the former Federal President of Germany, Joachim Universal Declaration of Human Rights and found the Gauck. As a former citizen of East Germany, he knows United Nations. Noble intentions and higher goals. what it is like to live without freedom. His father was In the Peace Palace in The Hague, international law arrested by the Russian secret police and impris- would surely reign supreme. oned in the Gulag. He was a pastor and a politician before rising to the position of Federal President of For the sake of humanity, we should be able Germany, which he held from 2012 to 2017, alongside to intervene to prevent wars. But the real world Chancellor Angela Merkel. In 2012, in Breda in the is complex and unpredictable. We can land a Netherlands, he was the first German dignitary to give research buggy on Mars, but we are no nearer to the National Liberation Speech at the invitation of achieving our ancient desire for peace on earth. Queen Beatrix. For him, this was a particular honour. Not to mention the many new forms of struggle that we face today, against fake news, drones and In this edition of Aanspraak, Joachim Gauck makes a Big Brother with Big Data that can track, analyse a plea for tolerance. In the New Year, he will be and predict our every move. The British writer the guest speaker for the ‘Auschwitz Never Again’ George Orwell foresaw all of this in his novel Lecture, which is organised each year by the Dutch “Nineteen Eighty-Four”, which was published in Auschwitz Committee, the NIOD and the Sociale 1949. Today, keeping watchful and critical is a Verzekeringsbank. This lecture comes just a few days more difficult task than ever. before International Holocaust Memorial Day on 27 January, the day that Auschwitz was liberated by Is democracy as a form of government gaining the Russian army. At the end of the interview, you ground over dictatorship around the globe? can read how you can register for his lecture on It would seem it still has a long way to go. We are 22 January 2020 in the Royal Tropical Institute living in a troubled world and in times of upheaval, in Amsterdam. we often see the rise of conservatism and a hunker- ing for strong leadership. Is it possible for us I wish you all a peaceful and prosperous 2020. to take a stance against this as individuals? Will we be able to safeguard peace and security in Europe and beyond? What should or shouldn’t be tolerated? How can a democracy best safeguard the freedom Ruud van Es and rights of its citizens? Sociale Verzekeringsbank Aanspraak - December 2019 - 4 ‘Freedom has to be fought for over and over again’ Federal President of Germany (2012-2017) Joachim Gauck makes a plea for tolerance. The former Evangelical-Lutheran pastor Joachim the acceptance of differences of opinion in our Gauck (1940) rose to prominence in East Germany European democracies. As a former East German as an anti-communist civil rights activist. During the citizen, he knows what it is to live in a totalitarian ‘Peaceful Revolution’ in the GDR in 1989, Gauck state. Gauck shows us what freedom and tolerance was co-founder of the civil opposition movement really mean and stresses how important it is to Neues Forum, which played a part in the fall of the fight against those who are intolerant or who try Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands. to undermine our democratic rights and values. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification Why do you think it is so important to start a of Germany in 1990, Joachim Gauck was elected by debate about tolerance? And why is tolerance the Volkskammer (East German parliament) to rep- ‘simply difficult’? resent the Alliance 90/Green Party in the German Democracy creates a space in which pluralism and Federal parliament, the Bundestag. A day later, difference are accepted, but in doing so, it also he was elected as the first federal representative grants rights to those whose ideas, ideologies or specifically charged with overseeing and investigat- religions are perceived by large parts of society as ing the Stasi archives, a task he fulfilled from 1990 alienating or even wrong. This is often extremely to 2000. It was in this position that he acquired his difficult for people to accept. By developing reputation as a ‘Stasi hunter‘ and ‘tireless advocate tolerance, you show that you are free to make your of democracy’, exposing the crimes of the East own decisions. You don’t always have to run away German secret police. from awkward situations or act aggressively in defence; you’re not doomed to regard anyone who From 2012 to 2017, he was the Federal President is not on your side or who doesn’t share your opinion of Germany. On the occasion of his 70th birth- as the enemy. You can learn to put up with and even day, Chancellor Angela Merkel described him as a get on with ‘otherness’. Tolerance stops people “true teacher of democracy” and an “advocate for immediately forming camps, shutting themselves off freedom, democracy and the rule of law.” In his from other groups and acting hostile towards them. book ‘Freedom: A Plea’, published in 2012, Gauck calls for the defence of freedom and human rights In 1951, your father was sentenced by the Soviet around the world. regime to a Gulag in Siberia. Were you and your family in contact with him during his imprisonment? Speaker at the ‘Auschwitz My father was one of a group of innocent people Never Again’ Lecture 2020 arrested, tried in secret by a Soviet Russian military tribunal, handed two sentences of twenty-five years’ On January 22 2020, Joachim Gauck will give the hard labour and deported to Siberia. The families of ‘Auschwitz Never Again’ Lecture. The following victims who had been ‘picked up’ under the Stalinist interview came after the publication of his book terror were not told what had happened to them. ‘Toleranz – einfach schwer’ (Tolerance – Simply For two and a half years we had no idea whether my Difficult) (2019), in which he argues for more tol- father was dead or alive, or where he could possibly erance to allow for the growth of freedom and be. It wasn’t until after Stalin died that my mother Aanspraak - December 2019 - 5 was informed by word of mouth that he had been civil society, especially in the Western part. The convicted by the Soviets and was still alive. country is a maze of active networks run by men and women on a voluntary basis. It was important After his return in 1955, did your father ever talk for me as Federal President to strengthen people’s to you about his time as a Russian prisoner? self-confidence and remind Germany of its duty to My father was never secretive about what had assume its international responsibilities wherever happened to him. He had written poems about his possible. imprisonment which he recited to us after he came back. He did not keep silent about the injustice he There is a significant gap opening up between had suffered. conservative forces that want society to stay as it is now and progressive forces advocating In what ways did your father’s experience affect globalization and innovation. How can our your choices in life? politicians bridge the gap between these different Because of what happened to my father, my brother lifestyles and beliefs? and my sisters and I became politically aware at an This phenomenon has been the subject of much unusually early age. State socialism manifested itself observation and discussion in the West and the early on as organised injustice. As a result, our family United States in recent years. My own viewpoint can sided with those who distanced themselves from the be found in my book, ‘Toleranz - einfach schwer’ regime. We refused to join the state organisations (Tolerance – Simply Difficult). If we are to have a that were set up for children and young people. future as an open society that accepts differences, And as adults, we naturally avoided joining the state we will have to embrace a broader definition of ruling party.