The flags on the four corner towers of the Reichstag building is flying at half-mast. Inside, in the Bundestag, quoted the historian Saul Friedländer from a speech Adolf Hitler held in this building, almost to the day, exactly 80 years ago. By the end of January 1939 Hitler spoke in the Reichstag of the “extermination of the Jewish race in Europe”. However, Saul Friedländer is not available on this day, therefore, at the lectern in the Bundestag, because he is one of the most renowned connoisseur of the NS-time. The 86-Year-old has even survived the Holocaust.
The highest representatives of the German state for coming out on this Thursday, to commemorate, together with the deputies of the victims of national socialism. Very quiet it is in the Bundestag, as Friedländer told his story. He grew up in a Jewish family in Prague. English was the language of his Childhood, he says. The first song I learned to play on the piano, was a: I had a comrade.“
“It would be our last encounter”
it was As a peaceful country, six years old, occupied his home town by the Wehrmacht, his parents flee with him to France. But even there, the family is not long for sure. The parents want to save in 1942 in Switzerland, however, believe that the means of escape for her son is too dangerous. He is supposed to be hidden and is sent to a Catholic boarding school. But the nine-year-old runs away from there and creates it, his mother and father again. “They had to send me back.” What was done in his parents, asks Friedländer in his speech, as her son fought back with hands and feet against it, to be apart from them? “It was our last encounter.” Saul Friedländer is baptized in the Catholic boarding school and receives a new name.
However, the escape of the parents in Switzerland fails. In November 1942, they were deported from Drancy to Auschwitz. Until today, peaceful countries often wonders whether his parents were together during the hellish journey, what they thought, what they said to each other.
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to order, Many years later, he has collected as a historian all the information he could find about the Transport. He can say that 1000 Jews were in the train, he has found names and dates of birth, and know, therefore, that a two-year-old Boy was also sent in the death of a 84-year-old woman. As a historian he knows the number of people who were immediately sent to the gas chamber. One of them was his father. The mother little was murdered later as well.
AfD members cheer
this Morning the members will be able to experience, the representatives of the state and the government and the young people from several countries, as a guest, once again, what does it mean when a Survivor is killed, their names and their stories. As at the end of all the listeners to the applause rise and the 86-Year-old their respect, the members of the AfD and clapping. This Morning was closely watched, as the parliamentarians of a party would behavior, whose Chairman had referred to the time of the national socialism as a “fly speck” in German history. In the Bavarian Parliament, the AfD’s Deputy had left the memorial event after the speaker, Charlotte Knobloch had criticized the party.
Schäuble warns us not to make the culture of memory in question
President of the Bundestag Wolfgang Schäuble emphasized in the hour of commemoration, the importance of the culture of remembrance. “Who wanted to shake it, lays a Hand on the basic foundations of our Republic.” At this point, his speech is interrupted by applause of those who understood this as an allusion to the AfD. No Nation could be stripped of their history, warns the President of the Bundestag. “From the German guilt, the responsibility, to want to not forget to grow.” Also the anti-Semitism in Germany, “the old and the new, immigrant,” said Schäuble. It is a shame that Jews in Germany no longer think about emigrating, because they felt safe. “Shame alone is not enough. It need in everyday life and our defense against anti-Semitism, racism and discrimination of all kinds.“
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Also Friedländer warns of a rise of anti-Semitism, the radical Right and the Left, who criticized Israeli policies in an almost obsessive way and the right of Israel to exist were in question. In addition to the Jew-hatred also xenophobia and nationalism are on the rise worldwide, warns the historian. Therefore, he gives the members a reminder: “We all hope that you have the moral strength to continue to fight for tolerance, humanity and freedom, in short: for the true democracy.”
