Board letter to Ministers of Interior of the United Kingdom, Austria, Poland, Czech Republic, Germany, France, Hungary, and the Netherlands

The Independent: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/olaf-scholz-ap-germans-jews-auschwitz-b2485902.html

Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Saturday called on all citizens to defend Germany’s democracy and fight antisemitism as the country marked the 79th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau during World War II.

Since 1996, Germany has also marked January 27 as a day to remember the horrors of the Holocaust.

“’Never again’ is every day,” Scholz said in his weekly video podcast. “January 27 calls out to us: Stay visible! Stay audible! Against antisemitism, against racism, against misanthropy — and for our democracy.”

On that day in 1945, Soviet Red Army troops liberated some 7,000 prisoners at Auschwitz in German-occupied Poland. The Nazis murdered more than a million people in Auschwitz, most of them Jews.

In the days before the liberation, the Germans had evacuated tens of thousands of other inmates on foot in what is now called the Death March, because many inmates died of exhaustion and cold in the sub-freezing temperatures.

Altogether, they killed six million European Jews during the Holocaust.

On Saturday, as people in Germany put down flowers and lit candles at memorials for the victims of the Nazi terror, the German chancellor said that his country would continue to carry the responsibility for this “crime against humanity.”

He stressed that the fight against any kind of antisemitism and for democracy is not something that can be done by the government only, but needs the support of all Germans.

“Never again” demands the vigilance of everyone,” Scholz said. “Our democracy is not God-given. It is man-made.”

“It is strong when we support it,’ he added. ”And it needs us when it is under attack.”

Scholz referred specifically to the threat posed by the rise of far-right populists in Germany, elsewhere across Europe and worldwide “who are stirring up fears and sowing hatred.”

At the same time, the chancellor praised the millions of Germans who have joined pro-democracy protests in recent weeks.

“Our country is on its feet right now. Millions of citizens are taking to the streets: For democracy, for respect and humanity,” he said, adding that it was their solidarity “that makes our democracy strong. Showing it confidently in public — as is happening now — is a good thing.”

A report that right-wing extremists recently met to discuss the deportation of millions of immigrants, including some with German citizenship triggered massive demonstrations across the country. Some members of the far-right Alternative for Germany party, or AfD, were present at the meeting.

Growing anxiety over the AfD’s rising support among the German electorate also catalyzed pro-democracy protesters.

The AfD was founded as a eurosceptic party in 2013 and first entered the German Bundestag in 2017. Polling now puts it in second place nationally with around 23%, far above the 10.3% it won during the last federal election in 2021.

The party enjoys major support and is leading in eastern Germany, including the states of Brandenburg, Saxony and Thuringia, slated to hold elections this fall.

One of the oldest German Holocaust survivors, 102-year-old Margot Friedlaender expressed concern about the the spike in antisemitic incidents in the country.

“I would never have thought that it would happen like this again, because that’s how it started back then,” she said on public Television ARD on Friday, referring to the rise of the far-right. Friedlaender said for those of endured the horrors of the Holocaust it is “particularly difficult to understand and very sad.”

Over 100 members of parliament, government officials, ambassadors and European Jewish leaders, gathered in Prague and in the Theresienstadt camp on the eve of International Holocaust Remembrance Day to discuss ways of dealing with fake news and conspiracy theories against Jews in the media, social networks and the rising Anti-Semitism in Universities across the continent.

“I stress time and again that most victims of ISIS are Muslims. And when a topper from our government said to me, when we were discussing anti-Semitism, that in the Netherlands today 98 per cent of anti-Semitism comes from Muslims living in our country, I pointed out to him that when 80 per cent of my family was murdered there was not a single Muslim to be seen in the Netherlands,” I wrote in my diary of 7 February. Let me add that the day after 7 October, I received a phone call from our minister of general affairs, Van Gennip, who asked interestedly how I was doing and told me that “both the Moroccan and Turkish communities in the Netherlands do not find the events of 7 October acceptable”.

Probably I am a little too naive, because as far as I know, no mosque or Islamic community has dared to publicly distance itself from the 7 October massacre. Yes, a number of befriended imams let out a sincere and condemning sound in a personal conversation (I will not mention their names here, to avoid getting into Islamic trouble), but the Islamic silence at the time and the anti-Israel demonstrations at the opening of the Holocaust Museum and the anti-Herzog call by two hundred mosques do not make me feel good and worry for the future of Jewish Holland. Where were those two hundred mosques immediately after October 7? And I dare even ask myself: is there any future for the Jewish community in my homeland?

And the Netherlands is my homeland! Through my father’s line, I am the fourteenth generation after Chief Rabbi Moses Uri Halevi, the founder of the Portuguese-Israelite Congregation in Amsterdam. His congregation made Amsterdam into Amsterdam, put the city on the map and thus made a gigantic contribution to today’s Mokum. This makes it all the more painful to see the anti-Israel demonstrations and the enormously rising anti-Semitism close to the place from which 46 thousand Amsterdam Jews were deported on the trams of the GVB in World War II to end up, via Westerbork, on the trains of our own Dutch Railways, finally via the chimneys of the crematoria in the extermination camps in the dark hole of oblivion.

I dare even ask myself: is there any future for the Jewish community in my homeland?

How was the official opening of the Holocaust Museum? King Willem-Alexander, the president of Israel, the president of Austria and the chairman of the German Bundesrat spoke impressive, well measured words. The music, the speech by my friend Emile Schrijver, director of the Jewish Cultural Quarter, the other speakers, the voices of survivors, the children and the master of ceremonies Petra Katzenstein. If I wanted to properly put into words the impression this unforgettable, historic day made on me, I would read a few lines without words.

Every word I would write would be one too many, because the opening, the ceremony, the togetherness transcended all words. It was a deeply emotional event. Words describe, but words also limit and so: not a word I can dedicate to it.

And yet something also went wrong, wrong. Throughout the happening, anti-Semitic protests were heard. While the speakers were not drowned out, the music remained audible, their roar was like false-sounding background music, which, while not distracting from the perfect programme, demonstrated how necessary the Holocaust Museum is. In my opinion, the emotional damage done to survivors present was not adequately taken into account. And although, thank God, I was born only after the war, I too felt brutalised by the shouting crowd. I cherish freedom of speech, but the bestial manner in which I was shouted at, and with me so all those who came outside the Snoge, I find unacceptable. I do not understand why this was tolerated. The location from where the chanting was carried out was also painful: Waterloo Square, the source of Jewish life in the Jewish quarter at the time!

During the ceremony, fortunately I had my phone set to ‘do not disturb’, as a number of calls had come in from enraged Jewish people who, I later learned, found it unacceptable that protests were allowed and guests were allowed to be booed as they left the Snoge. At the amazing lunch at the Jewish Museum and especially when touring the Holocaust Museum, I was able to provide a lot of pastoral care. Many felt deeply hurt and abandoned … Yet, the feeling of gratitude and joy that this great monument was officially opened prevailed with everyone.

I cherish freedom of speech, but I find the bestial way I was called names unacceptable.

With this afternoon’s anti-Semitic roar still buzzing in my ears, I watched the documentary on the Jewish Council. It won’t be too bad, it was thought at the time. And so the Jewish Council was established. How do we view the growing anti-Semitism in 2024? Will it not be too bad?

But I must stop now to pack my suitcase and then quickly go to bed. Tomorrow at six o’clock the taxi will arrive and I will be on the plane at ten to eight on my way to Oporto for a three-day conference on kashrut. I hope and expect to learn a thing or two there. Keynote speakers from the rabbinical world, experts on kashrut, will give the speeches. I also have to speak, but what and where is not quite known yet. Probably at the unveiling of the monument being unveiled there in memory of the victims of 7 October.

And meanwhile, I float between my bed and the documentary on the Jewish Council, meet the grandsons of Asscher and Cohen, the chairmen, and wonder whether I am alarmist or realist. Cohen’s grandson fights with me against rising anti-Semitism. I don’t feel myself more unsafe than usual, but anti-Semitism is getting closer … am Jisraeel chai!

Een onvergetelijke dag