Speech by Ambassador Dr. Klaus Scharioth in the New York Synagogue on 8 November 2008:
Rabbi Schneier, Cantor Naftali Hershtik, Cantor Netanel Hershtik,
Ladies and Gentlemen
Thank you very much for the kind welcome and invitation to speak to you today here in New York. The New York Synagogue is a place of vibrant Judaism in a very vibrant city. My warm congratulations on this wonderful place and on the great work that you are doing here.
I am very glad to be here with you today, even though on a mournful occasion, the 70th anniversary of kristallnacht, a day that fills Germans with sadness, shame, and deep remorse. I know how important November 9, 1938 kristallnacht, as we still say in English is for you and for all Jews worldwide.? Your kind invitation to speak to you today is for me a sign of friendship, hope, and a great expression of your trust in my country.? It touches me deeply, that you asked me as German Ambassador to the United States I am able to speak to you on the 70th anniversary of the destruction of nearly all the synagogues in my country and to do that in – of all places – a synagogue.
II. November 9, 1938, is among the worst, most shameful moments in German history. In the night from November 9 to November 10, 1938, members of the SA and SS set fire to nearly all the synagogues in Germany and Austria in a pointedly coordinated action. Synagogues, Jewish cemeteries, and many businesses owned by Jews in Germany and Austria were destroyed. Many Germans stood passively by and watched the ransacking and destruction take place. Only very few cases of opposition have been documented. Ninety-one German Jews died that night; 400 Jews were murdered between November 9 and 13; 30,000 Jews were deported to concentration camps. For many others and for many of you -, this day ushered in an unprecedented rise in crimes against and persecution of Jews. The ninth of November 1938 marks the shift from a policy of discrimination and exclusion to one of deportation and destruction, a course which for six million European Jews ended in Auschwitz and other death camps.
III. Seventy years after the pogroms of November 9, 1938, we remember the many victims and honor the few survivors. It took some time before we as Germans could openly and unequivocally acknowledge our responsibility for the past. This initial hesitation can also be seen in the history of how we remember November 9, 1938: After the war, many Germans had a hard time looking back at the past at all. Most still had no awareness of, and thus no words for, the crimes of the National Socialists. Indeed, that is also why, for a long time, it was difficult for us to develop a feeling for our country again. The memory of the persecution and murder of the Jews, the memory also of kristallnacht was linked almost exclusively to the grief of the survivors. They and their families bore the memory. This has changed dramatically over the past forty years: In the seventies and eighties, more and more Germans began to ask about, and publicly discuss, remembering the barbarous history of Jewish persecution that emanated from Germany. Whether it is the vigils at the former sites of the synagogues, or in synagogues which have been built over the last decade or two, whether it is the ringing of the church bells on November 9, the ceremonies of remembrance and exchange programs with Israel they have all contributed over the past decades to sharpening our awareness of the past. Germany found her way to an unambiguous confrontation with National Socialism and to appropriate forms of remembrance. Ceremonies to remember kristallnacht and the Holocaust have become an important part of public life in Germany. Tomorrow, the Central Council of Jews in Germany and the German government are jointly organizing the ceremony remembering the 70th anniversary of kristallnacht in Berlin, and Chancellor Angela Merkel will speak at the event. No society, no people, no state can live without remembrance, for living without remembrance means living without identity and orientation, both for individuals and for society. If we do not want to enter blindly into the future, we have to know who we are and where we come from. That is why acts of remembrance like this one today, the one tomorrow in Berlin, and countless others all over the world are so important. It is also why building the Holocaust Memorial in the center of Berlin, at the very heart of the German Capital, was a right and good decision. So, on the one hand, we remember for the sake of the victims and their families. And I am personally very pleased that a number of Holocaust survivors from the greater Washington area have accepted my invitation to be my guests next week to remember kristallnacht together with me in Washington as well. But we also remember for our own sakes, for without remembrance, without memory, there can be no future. The new Germany unequivocally recognizes its historical guilt and responsibility. And I believe this unequivocal recognition has opened the door to a common future for both Germans and Jews.
IV. Despite all commonalities, there can be no doubt who was the perpetrator and who was the victim. Yet I am very grateful that, on a day like today, what matters is not what separates us but what unites us: We are united in the remembrance of the victims and their suffering. We are united in the revulsion of what human beings can do to one another. We are united in the horror that so many people could look away when their neighbors and friends were subjected to injustice and suffering, that only very few showed courage and offered resistance. Yet, above all, we are united in the responsibility for preserving the memory of the past and the responsibility for a shared, more humane future.
V. “Remembrance is not the passive contemplation of history”, as German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said earlier this year. Remembrance, I believe, must remain active if it is not to become an empty phrase. And only active remembrance can win the battle against forgetting. We Germans want a kind of active remembrance that views responsibility for the past as an obligation to the future. For us as Germans, this active remembrance is, for example, expressed in a special responsibility for the State of Israel and its people. Germany and the State of Israel have had close ties ever since Prime Minister Ben Gurion and Chancellor Adenauer met at the Waldorf-Astoria not too far away from here – and in the Negev Desert. We have built strong political and economic ties, we work together on science and on defense. And we want to even further advance cooperation between Germany and Israel in all fields. For this reason, the German government has recently convened a new Germany-Israel forum for the future, which will promote innovative, forward-looking programs in both countries. We Germans are grateful and honored that many in Israel call us their “number two friend” in the world, after the United States. We would like to inspire more young people to participate in shaping relations between Israel and Germany and to maintain them at this level for the long term.?When Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke to the Members of the Knesset earlier this year she said, and I quote “Every German Government and every German Chancellor before me has shouldered Germany’s special historical responsibility for Israel’s security. This historical responsibility is part of my country’s raison d’etre. For me as German Chancellor, therefore, Israel’s security will never be open to negotiation.”?And I would like to add that whoever denies the Holocaust or questions Israel’s existence has to expect vehement opposition from Germany. Germany staunchly stands by Israel and its people. We hope that the elections in Israel and the inauguration of President Obama will breathe new life into the Middle East peace process. Germany and the European Union are ready to do their part to achieve success there. Active remembrance also means that we take action against any form of anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism, racism, and xenophobia must never be tolerated in Germany or anywhere else. Jewish life must have a firm and safe place in our societies. The German government and the overwhelming majority of all Germans stand by this.
VI. Today, Jewish life in Germany is not only a memory but again living reality.?Over the years, some 240,000 Jews, mostly from the former Soviet Union, have found a new home with us in Germany. The Jewish community in Germany is now larger and more vibrant than ever before since the Second World War. After the Holocaust, Jewish life in Germany cannot be taken for granted. However, there is once again Jewish daily life in Germany: Synagogues and Jewish community centers in Frankfurt, Werzburg, Bochum, Munich, and Berlin were restored and rebuilt. The gold dome of the synagogue on Oranienburger Street in Berlin/Mitte is now just as much a symbol of Berlin as is the glass dome of the Reichstag building. The Abraham Geiger College in Potsdam is educating Rabbis again. In Dresden the first rabbis since 1943 were ordained in 2006; in Heidelberg, religious teachers are being trained at the University for Jewish Studies. Jewish kindergartens, kosher stores, Orthodox Jews, they are all part of the landscape in the new Germany, and we are very happy about that. When I was growing up and studying in Germany in the fifties and sixties, I had hardly any contact with Jews. And that was also still largely true of the generation of my children. For a long time after the Holocaust, the Jewish community in Germany barely numbered more than 15,000, and it was not clear whether those 15,000 would permanently remain in Germany. But that has changed. “Whoever builds, wants to stay” as the chairwoman of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Charlotte Knobloch, recently put it at the inauguration of a new synagogue. And so I am certain that for my grandchildren’s generation it will become commonplace again to grow up together with Jews and to experience Jewish life up close. The great German-Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt says in her piece Vita Activa that being able to start over again is the essence of human existence. I believe that Germans and Jews have succeeded in starting over, and we are very pleased about that.?And: The National Socialists did not have the last word. True – The Holocaust remains the darkest hour in the relationship between Jews and Germans. But,and this is crucial it has not become the final chapter in the shared history of Germans and Jews. Many people in Germany now have Jewish friends, acquaintances, and neighbors. We see this as an enormous expression of trust.
VI. We want to live up to the trust that Jews in Germany, and that you today – have shown me and my country, in the knowledge of the past and with the will to shape a more humane future. Working on that together is our common task. Thank you very much.
