“The responsibility on Germany’s shoulders is enormous”
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Schäuble – “75 years after Auschwitz there is still anti-Semitism”
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The Bundestag commemorated the victims of National Socialism on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the Auschwitz liberation. President of the Bundestag Wolfgang Schäuble called for resolute opposition to anti-Semitism.
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The Bundestag commemorates the Holocaust 75 years after Auschwitz. In his speech, Israel’s President Rivlin recalls Germany’s “lighthouse effect”. Federal President Steinmeier warns of “evil spirits”.
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IIn his speech to the Bundestag, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin called on the European Union to defend its core values. Europe is haunted by the ghosts of the past today, Rivlin said in Parliament’s memorial service for the victims of the Holocaust in Berlin on Wednesday. Nationalism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism hovered across Europe, he said.
Rivlin said the continent was not in the 1930s and was therefore not on the threshold of a new Shoah. Nevertheless, it should not be overlooked. Germany has a special responsibility, said the Israeli president. The same country that had become the horror of the world through National Socialism is now a “beacon” for the protection of liberal values.
If Jews couldn’t live there freely today, they couldn’t live anywhere else in the world, the President said. “The responsibility that rests on Germany’s shoulders is enormous,” he warned.
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Before Rivlin, Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Bundestag President Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU) also spoke in the Bundestag. Steinmeier warned of the return of authoritarian thinking in Germany and called for a decisive fight against anti-Semitism and racism. “Let’s rise up against the old spirit in the new times,” he saidin memory of the millions of victims of National Socialism.
“We thought the old nonsense would fade over time. But no: the evil spirits of the past are now in a new guise, ”warned Steinmeier. They presented their ethnic, authoritarian thinking as a vision, as the better answer to the open questions of our time. “I’m afraid we weren’t prepared for this – but that’s exactly what our time is testing us for. And we have to pass this test. We owe it to responsibility for history, victims and survivors! ”
Schäuble: “There is no wholesome silence”
Schäuble urged the Germans to repeatedly face up to the crimes of National Socialism and to remember the victims. “There is no wholesome silence about Auschwitz,” said Schäuble in his speech. There have been repeated attempts and there are still attempts to downplay or reinterpret the crimes. “It won’t work,” he said.
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“It is part of the basic social consensus to accept this historical responsibility,” said Schäuble. He commemorated the victims of the Nazi regime: Jews, Sinti and Roma, Slavs, forced laborers, homosexuals, the disabled, prisoners of war and other outcasts.
On January 27, 1945, Soviet soldiers liberated the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi concentration and extermination camp. There alone more than a million people were murdered by the Nazis. In 1996, the then Federal President Roman Herzog proclaimed January 27 as a memorial day for the victims of National Socialism.
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Holocaust survivors – – – – –
Every year the Bundestag commemorates the victims of National Socialism.
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