Speech by Dr Wolfgang Schäuble at the Ceremony of Remembrance for the Victims of National Socialism

Mr President,

Federal President,

Madam Chancellor,

President of the Bundesrat,

President of the Federal Constitutional Court,

Excellencies,

Colleagues,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Silence about Auschwitz does not heal. We have to talk about Auschwitz. Something for which there are actually no words, as Elie Wiesel said in his address to the German Bundestag 20 years ago.

We can still sense this irresolvable tension – even 75 years after Red Army soldiers liberated the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp.

Auschwitz is a reminder of how easily people can be led astray, how fragile our civilisation is, how quickly our humanistic fabric is damaged; how vulnerable its ethical foundations remain if we fail to defend them.

“Our understanding of the past must constantly be negotiated afresh. Silence on this issue does not heal” – this point was made by Jan Assmann. The peace prize winner and historian has grappled repeatedly with the question of why we remember. And how a shared memory develops. In an arduous, multifaceted process in which the “paralysed and paralysing silence” fades only gradually.

We have to talk about Auschwitz – and about the responsibility we bear as a consequence of what took place there and as a lesson learned from it, each generation anew. This responsibility is closely connected to the obligation to respect, protect and defend human dignity and people’s inalienable rights. To ensure that there is no longer any place for the stigmatisation, exclusion or persecution of other people.

It is also connected to our historic responsibility for Israel’s existence and security. Our responsibility for cultivating the special German-Israeli relationship; for strengthening this extraordinary friendship, which remains ever conscious of the abysses of history while at the same time looking to the future.

It is therefore a special honour for us, Mr President, that you have accepted our invitation and will address us here today! It means a great deal to us. At this special ceremony, where we remember together: Germany and Israel, represented by both of our heads of state.

We remember the millions of victims of the Nazis’ crimes: the European Jews, the Sinti and Roma, the Slavic peoples who were degraded to the status of Untermenschen or “subhumans”, the forced labourers, the prisoners of war, and all those who died of starvation. We remember those who were persecuted and murdered for political reasons or religious motives, and those who courageously defied the Nazi regime, who retained their humanity and paid for it with their lives. We remember the suffering of homosexuals, people with disabilities and the fate of those who were stigmatised as Asoziale or “asocials”. Our thoughts are also with all those who managed to escape death, but were left broken by what they experienced. And with later generations, who are still scarred by the trauma of the Holocaust today.

Silence about Auschwitz does not heal – but remembering is painful, and the intervening years have done nothing to change that. What happened was too horrifying for the victims, many of whom never managed to speak about what they had suffered, while others did so only much later. We are therefore all the more moved by the fact that survivors of the Nazis’ crimes are present at this ceremony of remembrance. We wish you a particularly warm welcome to the distinguished visitors’ gallery.

It also took a long time for us Germans to truly face up to this part of our history, beyond acknowledging the guilt our country bears. There were – and still are – repeated attempts to play down or reinterpret the crimes which were committed. These attempts will not succeed. Accepting this historic responsibility is part of our basic consensus. It is fundamental to how our country sees itself. Anyone who tries to undermine this foundation will fail.

Silence about Auschwitz does not heal.

In 1985, Richard von Weizsäcker spoke of the necessity of “erecting a memorial of thoughts and feelings in our own hearts”. For 25 years, in the midst of our everyday parliamentary life, the ceremonies of remembrance at the German Bundestag have created a space for such thoughts and reflection, feelings and empathy. In a historic location, at the heart of German democracy, close to memorials in stone – and in the presence of young people from many different countries. I am pleased that so many young people have this year again taken up the Bundestag’s invitation to participate in the International Youth Encounter and would like to welcome you all very warmly! Your interest and commitment provide grounds for optimism that we will always succeed in finding new forms of and approaches to remembrance.

Over the past few days, these young people visited Auschwitz and were able to talk to and hear the testimony of survivors. The artist David Olère was amongst those who emerged from this hell. This morning, we opened an exhibition here at the Bundestag on his life and work. As a member of a Sonderkommando forced to work in the crematoria he was obliged to illustrate the private correspondence of his tormentors. The legacy of the drawings depicting the gas chambers and crematoria which he created afterwards serves as a both disturbing and deeply moving record of the horrors of Auschwitz. The pianist Igor Levit provided a worthy musical backdrop for the opening of the exhibition.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

History does not provide us with a set of instructions to guide our actions. Yet serious examination of the past heightens sensitivity to present-day developments and the ability to interpret them. This level of sensitivity is necessary – still necessary today. Today more than ever! Seventy-five years after Auschwitz, anti-Semitism and racism still exist in Germany – in many different forms.

Today we have with us Jeremy Borovitz and Rebecca Blady, two rabbis who were in the synagogue in Halle when the attack took place – an attack demonstrating a shocking desire to kill. Once again, Jews in Germany have to fear for their lives! The only answer is that of a strong state which acts rigorously – along with a courageous civil society which has grasped that the events of the past are not confined to the past. Since the subject of our remembrance today is – in the words of Imre Kertesz – “not the strange and disconcerting history of one or two generations, but a general possibility of humankind”.

We will now hear the music of the Jewish composer Simon Laks. He survived Auschwitz – as head of the camp orchestra. After the war, faced with the silence of so many, he published his memoirs, entitled Musiques d’un autre monde, music from another world. From a world of unbearable torment, a world from which only very few would ever escape. Ilse Weber was amongst that world’s victims. She was a Jewish writer who composed songs for children whilst in the concentration camp. She is said to have sung the lullaby Wiegala as she entered the gas chambers. And it is with this lullaby that we will conclude the ceremony.