Knesset speaker addresses German parliament on Holocaust Day

Berlin (dpa) – The speaker of the Israeli parliament recalled the crimes of the Nazi era in an address to the German parliament on Thursday and issued a call for democracy to be safeguarded.

“This is a place where humanity stretched the boundaries of evil, a place where loss of values turned a democratic framework into racist and discriminatory tyranny,” Mickey Levy told the Bundestag to mark Holocaust Memorial Day.

“So, it is here, within the walls of this house – which stand as silent witnesses of stone and steel – that we learn anew of the fragility of democracy and are reminded once more of our obligation to safeguard it,” he added.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and President Frank-Walter Steinmeier were present in the Bundestag, which meets in the Reichstag building that housed the German parliament into the start of the Nazi era.

Keeping the memory of the Holocaust alive was a challenging task that each new generation had to take on, Levy said, making reference to the Wannsee Conference, which was held near Berlin 80 years ago this month. During the conference, Nazi officials and military officers planned the genocide of Europe’s Jews.

While 80 years were perhaps insufficient to heal the wounds, recalling the Holocaust brought Israelis and Germans together. Both nations had managed to overcome the historical trauma, and both were united in seeing the significance of democracy, Levy said.

Levy broke down in tears while reciting the Jewish prayer for the dead, after which the Bundestag members applauded his speech for several minutes.

Earlier, Holocaust survivor Inge Auerbacher called for Germany to face down anti-Semitism in her address to the Bundestag.

“Unfortunately this cancer has raised its head again and hatred of the Jews has become common in many countries, in Germany as well,” she said.

“This disease must be healed as quickly as possible,” said Auerbacher, who survived the Theresienstadt Ghetto run by the Nazis in what is today the Czech Republic.

She concluded her speech by saying that all people were born as brothers and sisters. “My deepest wish is the reconciliation of all people,” she said.

Her family emigrated to the United States and Auerbacher made a career as a chemist despite suffering for years from illness resulting from her treatment during the war.

Holocaust Memorial Day is marked on January 27, the date in 1945 when the Red Army liberated the Auschwitz death camp operated by the Nazis in occupied Poland. The camp, where more than a million people were murdered, is the most notorious of the extermination camps operated by the Nazis in Eastern Europe.