Holocaust survivor calls out far-right opposition at Holocaust Remembrance Day speech
DW, 27 Jan 2021
The German Bundestag commemorated the end of the Holocaust with a ceremony in the Reichstag building and online on Wednesday. The commemoration also celebrates 1,700 years of Jewish life in Germany. The former head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, and Holocaust survivor, Charlotte Knobloch, and publicist Marina Weisband were guest speakers during the ceremony, attended by President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Chancellor Angela Merkel as well as other lawmakers.
The annual Bundestag memorial service was launched in 1996 by the then-president, Roman Herzog. The date January 27 was chosen to commemorate the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland by the Soviet Red Army in 1945.
Knobloch, who is 88 years old, is also the current president of the Jewish Community in Munich and Upper Bavaria. Knobloch talked of her pride of being German, like that of other members of her family. But that pride was not enough to save them from the concentration camps. She retold her and her family's harrowing ordeals during the Nazi regime. She also criticized coronavirus-skeptics who have compared lockdown measures with Nazi terror, receiving a round of applause from the audience. "Anyone who compars coronavirus measures with the National Socialist policies towards Jews is trivializing the anti-Semitic state terror and the Shoah. And that is unacceptable."
However, she called present-day Germany a "good country for Jewish people," but urged people to defend what has been created from the increasing instances of conspiracy theories and hatred against minorities.
Knobloch had a few words for the AfD on the "far-right of the plenary," saying: "I cannot pretend it doesn't worry me that you are here." But she held out hope that a few may change their course.
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The annual Bundestag memorial service was launched in 1996 by the then-president, Roman Herzog. The date January 27 was chosen to commemorate the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland by the Soviet Red Army in 1945.
Knobloch, who is 88 years old, is also the current president of the Jewish Community in Munich and Upper Bavaria. Knobloch talked of her pride of being German, like that of other members of her family. But that pride was not enough to save them from the concentration camps. She retold her and her family's harrowing ordeals during the Nazi regime. She also criticized coronavirus-skeptics who have compared lockdown measures with Nazi terror, receiving a round of applause from the audience. "Anyone who compars coronavirus measures with the National Socialist policies towards Jews is trivializing the anti-Semitic state terror and the Shoah. And that is unacceptable."
However, she called present-day Germany a "good country for Jewish people," but urged people to defend what has been created from the increasing instances of conspiracy theories and hatred against minorities.
Knobloch had a few words for the AfD on the "far-right of the plenary," saying: "I cannot pretend it doesn't worry me that you are here." But she held out hope that a few may change their course.
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For more news go to: http://www.dw.com/en/
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#HolocaustRemembranceDay #CharlotteKnobloch
