Speech at the International Holocaust Memorial Day, 27 January 2012

Dear Professor Koh,

Excellencies,

Dinstinguished guests,

Dear students,

Thank you very much for the warm welcome and the invitation to speak to you on the occasion of the “International Holocaust Memorial Day”. It is a great honour for me to be here with you today. It was with gratitude that I accepted Professor Koh's invitation to speak on “The historical significance of the Holocaust to Europe and the World”.

Today we remember the Holocaust.

Today we remember that on January 27, 1945, Auschwitz, the biggest German extermination camp, was liberated by Soviet troops. When they arrived, however, less than 7000 survivors could be saved. The other 58.000 had begun their death march only a few days before. In Auschwitz, 1.2 million people from all over Europe – women and men, old people and children – had been robbed of their rights, of their dignity and of life itself.

Today we remember the murder of 6 million Jews carried out in the name of Germany.

Today we are reminded that the Holocaust represents a collapse of all civilized values which has no parallel. It is the moral disaster of our history.

In 1996, the then President of the Federal Republic of Germany, Roman Herzog, declared January 27^th the Holocaust Remembrance Day in Germany. The Federal Government and the German Bundestag join together every year on January 27 to honour the victims of National Socialism. The yearly commemoration ceremony in the German Parliament with prominent guest speakers from abroad – for instance, Simon Peres in 2010 or Marcel Reich-Ranicki, literary critic and survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto, this year – has since become a tradition. In 2003, the Council of Europe decided to follow Germany. And in 2005, the United Nations followed and declared this day the International Day on Holocaust Remembrance, thereby underlining that it is essential for all mankind to learn from history.

So what does the Holocaust mean for Germany, Europeand the world? Please allow me to focus on three issues, namely the historical significance for Germany and our special relationship with Israel; followed by the historical significance for Europeand for the United Nations.

Germany recognizes its historical guilt and understands it as an enduring responsibility for the Shoah. The responsibility for the Holocaust has become an essential part of German identity.

Taking responsibility is reflected in the German constitution from 1949. The very first article reads: "Human dignity shall be inviolable. To respect and protect it shall be the duty of all state authority. The German people therefore acknowledge inviolable and inalienable human rights as the basis of every community, of peace and of justice in the world."

With these words the fathers of our constitution drew the lesson from one of the darkest chapters of our history. They put the individual in the centre. The state has to serve the individual and not vice versa. This is valid in Germany, in Europe, and universally. Only the protection of human rights worldwide can prevent the world from falling apart.

Therefore remembrance must not end. It is important to find a way of remembrance that has a lasting effect on the future in order to prevent the Holocaust from happening again.

To ensure remembrance in the future, teaching the younger generation is a key element. Thus, in Germany Holocaust education is mandatory in all 16 German states. The Holocaust and the history of National Socialism are part of the curriculum of both history and political science classes. Other subject matters such as German, religion, ethics, philosophy also address the Holocaust while not focussing on it. Schools are recommended to have their students visit some of the original sites such as former concentration camps or the house of the so-called Wannsee-conference in Berlin, as well as the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin.

Roughly 3 million people visit former concentration camps in Germany each year, and the large majority are students. The sites offer guided tours with personnel that has been prepared especially to discuss the Holocaust with students. Recent surveys have shown that students do appreciate Holocaust education.

In order to deal with extremists who deny or downplay the Holocaust publicly, Germany’s criminal code made such acts punishable offences in 1994 which can lead to up to 5 years imprisonment. Such acts are considered criminal agitation against a community and its members, and can be condoned neither on grounds of freedom of expression nor freedom of research.

Holocaust denial is illegal in a number of European countries as well. Many countries also have broader laws that criminalize genocide denial. In addition, the European Union has issued a directive to combat racism an xenophobia.

Nowadays Holocaust education has to adapt to two new challenges.

First, students now belong to the third, sometimes even the fourth generation after the Holocaust and World War II. The second generation could still address the Holocaust when confronting their parents what they did during the War. Today’s generation has to find different ways to address the issue and relate to it.

Second, German society is changing rapidly. Roughly 15 million Germans today have some kind of immigration background. That means that at least one of their parents immigrated from the former Soviet Union, the Balkans, the Maghreb or Turkey. It is encouraging to see that most of those teenagers actually are interested to learn about the Holocaust. With respect to their heritage and history, teaching about the Holocaust has to adapt.

Among those who have migrated to Germany over the years are also some 200,000 Jews, mostly from the former Soviet Union. The Jewish community in Germany is now larger and more vibrant than ever before since the Second World War.

For us, this revival of Jewish life in Germany is an enormous joy. Synagogues, training of Rabbis, Jewish kindergartens, kosher stores – all these have a place in today’s Germany again, and that makes us very happy. Many people in Germany, who for a long time had no contact with Jews, now have Jewish friends, acquaintances, and neighbours again. We see that as an enormous proof of trust.

Taking responsibility for the Holocaust also meant to the newly formed Federal Republic of Germany to build a special relationship with the state of Israel. This meant and still means the commitment and the enduring responsibility of Germany for the State of Israel in it’s right to exist in secure borders. This historical and political responsibility is one of the pillars of our foreign policy.

Nowadays this special relationship is expressed by the exchange on the highest political level. To illustrate this, let me just give you two examples:

In 2008 Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed the German commitment to Israel in a speech to the Members of the Knesset: “This historical responsibility is part of my country's raison d'être. For me as German Chancellor, therefore, Israel's security will never be open to negotiation.”

“A ‘Never Again!’ has never been able to protect future generations. It takes more than words, more than good resolutions, more than good intentions.” These were the words of  Simone Veil, a survivor of the Auschwitz death camp and later President of the European Parliament speaking on the significance of the Holocaust to Europe in her speech during the commemoration ceremony in the German Parliament. She said, on January 27, 2004:

“In the response to the terrible experience of the war of extermination waged by Germany grows the seed of uniting Europe. In this process of unification, Germany was able to earn the trust of its former enemies, and started to assume responsibility in Europe and the world. In the early years, building Europe was mainly a reaction to World War II and the Holocaust was not explicitly mentioned. But this does not mean that it was not on the minds and the hearts of the founding fathers of Europe. Everybody involved knew that in order to build a peaceful Europe it had to be united. Thus, uniting Europe was also the means of preventing Holocaust in the future.”

Shimon Peres, the President of Israel, stated in his speech in 2010 which I mentioned already: “We want to learn from the Europeans, who unshackled Europe from a thousand years of war and bitterness and enabled Europe's young to substitute the hostility of their forefathers by brotherhood. It would be wise to learn from their experience, to dream about a Middle East in which it's countries will depart from the conflicts of their parents on behalf of peace for their children.“

So when we look at Europe today, we have to remind ourselves that the European Union is not only the Euro. The Union is not only founded as a zone of integrated economic cooperation.

On the contrary, it is founded on the deeper historical insight: Never again should there be war waged in Europe in the name of the nation states. Never again should the people of Europe suffer from war. Never again should a minority be persecuted. Never again should a person live in fear because of his religion, heritage, or background.

And since it takes more than just insight: A body of European Union law was created, a common sets of rules and binding regulations. It spans more than 30 different chapters from free movement of goods, persons and services to judiciary and fundamental rights to foreign, security and defence policy. All new member states have to adhere to this so-called ‘acquis communautaire’, making it the powerful transmission belt in building a peaceful Europe. To quote Ms Veil again: “It can hardly be esteemed what a moral victory it is that the accession of new member states of the former Eastern Block to the EU today proceeds in peace as well as peacefully and democratically.” The latest example is Croatia.

The European Union has brought the continent a prolonged period of peace and prosperity: The centre of Europe has not seen war for more than 60 years. This is a unique achievement: A living unity in diversity. To preserve this achievement is our common duty in Europe.

This model of cooperation with endless rounds of negotiations is demanding. But to overcome the consequences of the model of the past – confrontation – would, however, be even more demanding.

Not less demanding on patience is negotiating under the roof of the United Nations. But it serves the main purpose on an even wider scale, driven by the ambition to counter our militant world with structures fighting for the rule of law. The war tribunals of Nuremberg and Tokyo as well as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are powerful examples for this undertaking, to prevent genocide and to defend the human rights of each and every one of us. We all are aware that we only partially succeed, but the UN can be only so strong as its member states allow them to be.

At the World Summit in September 2005, member states of the UN took an important step when they confirmed in the outcome document: “Each individual state has the responsibility to protect its populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. … The international community, through the United Nations, also has the responsibility to use appropriate diplomatic, humanitarian and other peaceful means, in accordance with Chapters VI and VIII of the Charter of the United Nations, to help protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity….”.

In order to fulfil this responsibility we also have to learn and understand the roots and terrible consequences of genocide. So it was adequate that in the same year, in 2005, the United Nations declared January 27 the International Day on Holocaust Remembrance, thus elevating this day to reassert our joint commitment to human rights.

This is also why, today, we remember the Holocaust.

In concluding I would like to particularly address all the young people in this audience. You might ask yourselves what this chapter of - geographically as well as time wise – distant history has to do with you and with Singapore in the 21^st century. You will, I am convinced, hear about this now. This is why I would like to express my appreciation and thanks to Ambassador Koh for his selection of today's speakers and their topics. I am very much looking forward to what they have to say.