David Lega as appointed as EJA new Secretary General

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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.”

Gidon Lev still remembers the day the Red Cross delegation came to visit Theresienstadt concentration camp, where he had been held for three years. He was nine years old.

It was 23 June 1944. The delegation toured the site, inspected its conditions, and examined detainees for signs of Nazi cruelty.

“There was a central park and we children could never go to it,” he told the JC in Prague ahead of a visit to the camp this week.

“On the day that the Red Cross came, they stood 100 metres away and took photographs.

The guards took children like me by truck from our barracks and brought them to the place and said ‘spielen’, ‘play’.

There were swings there, what do children do? They play.” Unwittingly, young Gidon had been co-opted into a Nazi propaganda exercise aimed at concealing the true aim of the Final Solution from the world.

The pandemic has upended so much of our daily lives, including the most sacred: our holy days.
Millions of Jews around the world will be celebrating Pesach this evening in ways that up until a few weeks ago was unimaginable, without family around them, without the bustling celebration around the table. It will of course be hard for all of us.
Of course, the irony of celebrating our holiday of freedom whilst we are in confinement due to a plague – the coronavirus, will not be lost on us.
And yet, even amongst this adversity, we are being given the opportunity to celebrate Pesach in a unique way, loaded with significance that can, in fact, bring us closer to the story of our exodus from Egypt. How?
Let us be honest, how many of us really appreciate what freedom means? In our modern lives the vast majority of us are free to come and go as we please. This pandemic has given us a flavour of what it is like to lose freedoms that we take for granted, and in the process brings us closer to our ancestors, who lost theirs under Pharaoh. It brings the holiday alive.
Truly both nights will be different from all the others, they remind us to truly appreciate the everyday blessings that the almighty bestows on us everyday, our families, our jobs, our friends.
I wish you, and your families a Pesach Sameach, and G-d willing next year in Jerusalem!