Yad Vashem Chairman Dayan Remarks to Opening of Artifacts Exhibit

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Dear President Bas
Honored guests 
Beloved Holocaust survivors and their families
Colleagues
Dear friends -

This is my second day in Germany.
I don’t mean the second day of my current visit. 
I mean my second day ever in Germany.
Truthfully, until 16 months ago, 
I planned on never coming to Germany.
For me it was a matter of principle.
Not a matter of hatred against Germans, 
certainly not contemporary Germans.
But rather the sacred principle of remembrance. 
Out of respect, even veneration, 
for the memory, lives, and civilization
of my six million brothers and sisters – 
including actual family relatives of mine – 
murdered by Nazi Germany and its collaborators, 
it had been meaningful for me to deny myself 
the chilling, challenging and also compelling experience 
of visiting your country, as a Jew.
It is likely that I would have never come here – 
and of all venues in Germany, 
certainly not to this specific place: the Bundestag, 
in the very shadow of the infamous Reichstag – 
had I not been appointed as Chairman of Yad Vashem. 
That turning point has changed my life, 
in many deeply important ways – 
one of which is my presence in Berlin today 
as the head of the World Holocaust Remembrance Center. 
Paradoxically, I stand before you at this significant event, 
for the very reason that I avoided coming before:
Because remembrance matters. 
And Holocaust remembrance matters very much, 
in particular to my nation and… 
in a vastly different way – 
to your nation as well.
The importance of Holocaust remembrance 
was realized by many of the victims themselves.
Even as they were fighting desperately for their lives 
and the lives of their loved ones - 
they sought to ensure their place in the memory,
in the consciousness and conscience,
of humanity.

Anneliese Borinski was born here in Berlin in 1914 
to a Jewish family 
that felt well-assimilated into German society and culture. 
The rise of the Nazis to power pushed Anneliese, 
like many other German Jews,
into exclusively Jewish frameworks, 
including the Zionist Maccabi Hatza'ir youth movement. 
There Anneliese took on a leadership role, 
literally rallying her comrades around the Maccabi flag, 
a banner which took on increasingly symbolic significance, 
as the persecutions they suffered 
became steadily more terrible.
In 1943, Annaliese and 11 of her friends,
facing certain dispersion to various ghastly fates, 
decided to perform an act 
of shared commitment and faith in the future:
They cut their Maccabi flag into 12 pieces.
Each took one piece for safekeeping, 
and they vowed to re-assemble the flag
when they would, hopefully, gather „after the war“. 
These remarkable young Jewish idealists understood, 
already then, 
the power of a physical item, of an artifact, 
to motivate and inspire.

As Annaliese recalled in her post-Holocaust testimony:
We realized that it would be important to stay together…
with our ideals, 
with our aim to eventually reach the land of Israel 
and to bring the pieces of the flag with us…
So I hid the piece of flag under the sole of my shoe…
It was very important for me to hide it somewhere safe…
Only three of the twelve „flag-holders“ survived the Holocaust. 
One of them was Annaliese, 
who endured the horrors of Auschwitz-Birnkenau 
and eventually moved to Israel, 
where her name became Ora Aloni.
The three survivors created a restored, complete Maccabi flag.
Ora's piece of the original flag, as well as the replica flag, 
were given to Yad Vashem.
And, shortly, you will be able to view them, 
as part of the special and very memorable exhibit 
that opens here today for the first time.

My dear friend, President Bas:
It was not obvious for us at Yad Vashem 
that the Maccabi banner 
and the other cherished artifacts in this exhibit 
should be brought back for display in Germany. 

Yes, for decades – it has been a democratic Germany.
A „new Germany“, we are assured.
But nevertheless it is the place 
where Hitler and Nazism emerged, prospered and spread. 
And it is here, many decades later,  
that alarming and hateful expressions of antisemitism
have increased in recent years – 
an outrageous situation 
that Germany's leaders are trying to address.

The tens of thousands of items 
that have been donated to Yad Vashem,
The hundreds of millions of documents,
are „at home“ on our Mount of Remembrance in Jerusalem
precisely because their owners realized 
that we are the Jewish people's sacred repository of memory.

But in a reality of rising antisemitism and Holocaust distortion,
with fewer Shoah survivors alive every day,
these outstanding items have a vital story to tell, 
around the world, and especially in Germany.
They are themselves 
witnesses to the annals of the Shoah and its aftermath.
As you will soon see,
these artifacts' message resonates in the hearts and minds 
of anyone, of any nationality or faith, 
who cares about truth and morality.
President Bas, 
Thank you so much for making it possible 
for these very special items 
to tell the truth here at the Bundestag.
Thanks to all our friends and supporters in Germany, 
especially our Yad Vashem Freundeskreis, 
led so ably by Kai Diekmann,
who are also making it possible 
for this exhibit to move on later to Essen.
And special thanks to my skilled and committed 
Yad Vashem colleagues,
including of course Ruth Ur, who co-curated the exhibit,
with Michael Tal.
I will conclude with an ancient Hebrew blessing 
related to another of the objects in our exhibit: 
Rabbi Posner's Hanukah menorah from Kiel, 
recently rekindled by President Steinmeier. 
As Jews light the menorah they proclaim:
שעשה נסים לאבותינו, בימים ההם – בזמן הזה.
Sheh-asah Nissim la-avoteynu, 
ba-yamim ha-hem, ba-z'man hazeh
Which means: 
„Miracles occurred in those times… and in ours“
Just as our ancestors were blessed with the miracle 
of renewed Jewish wellbeing and independence, 
so too have we. 
What an appropriate place this is 
to recall that achievement 
and pledge our shared determination 
to maintain it. 
Shalom.