Knesset Speaker Michael Levy addressed the German Bundestag where the main ceremony marking the International Holocaust Remembrance Day was taking place on Thursday.
Holocaust survivors and politicians around the world gave speeches, warning about the resurgence of antisemitism and Holocaust denial as the world remembered Nazi atrocities and commemorated the 77th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp.
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Knesset Speaker Mickey Levy at German Bundestag on International Holocaust Memoria ceremony
(Photo: Knesset Channel)
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, many International Holocaust Remembrance Day events were being held online this year again. A small ceremony, however, was to take place at the site of the former Auschwitz death camp, where World War II Nazi German forces killed 1.1 million people in occupied Poland.
Levy during his speech broke down in tears while reciting the Jewish mourner's prayer from a prayer book that belonged to a German Jewish boy who celebrated his bar mitzvah on the eve of Kristallnacht.
"I stand before you moved and humbled," Levy said in Hebrew, "I am proud to represent Israel, the only Jewish and Democratic country in the world, is my capacity as Knesset Speaker," he said.
Levy thanked Bundestag President Bärbel Bas for inviting him to the event, "marking the worst events in human history.
"Here, in this historic German parliament building, one can grasp the power of humans to use democracy for its own destruction," Levy said. "This is where humanity drew the boundaries of evil in place of values," he said.
"That is why here of all places, between these walls who stand as stone and steal witnesses, we are relearning the fragility of democracy and our duty to protect it," Levy said.
"Preservation of the memory of the Holocaust is a heavy task and the duty of each generation, in order to educate future generations," he said.
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Knesset Speaker Mickey Levy embraces Holocaust survivor Inge Auerbacher after her speech at the memorial ceremony in Berlin on Thursday
(Photo: Reuters)
In addition to German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and other dignitaries, Holocaust survivor Inge Auerbacher also attended. In her speech she told of Ruth a resident of Berlin who she befriended at Theresienstadt during the war, and who she promised to visit when it was over. Ruth did not survive. "I'm here to visit you Ruth," Auerbacher said in tears.
Levy was the first ceremony with the participation of a senior Israeli official.
In his moving speech, Levy also thanked former Chancellor Angela Merkel for her relentless efforts to keep the memory of the Holocaust alive and strengthen Israel-Germany ties.
Turning to the current chancellor, Olaf Scholz, Levy said he had full trust that the same efforts would continue under his leadership.
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The ceremony marking International Holocaust Memorial Day at the Bundestag in Berlin on Thursday
(Photo: Knesset Channel)
He concluded his words, unable to contain his tears, with the recital of the Kaddish, the Jewish prayer recited during funerals and memorials to the dead, in memory of the victims of the Holocaust.
In all, about 6 million European Jews and millions of other people were killed by the Nazis and their collaborators during the Holocaust. Some 1.5 million were children.
Associated Press contributed to this report
First published: 12:49, 01.27.22