BERLIN
(EJP) --- Germany’s debt for the “crimes against humanity” of the
Holocaust means for it “the existence and security of Israel are not
negotiable”, German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle told attendees of
a memorial service to Berlin’s Jewish deportees last Thursday.
In
the presence of Israeli Premier Benjamin Netanayhu, at the end of his
visit to the German capital as part of the fourth annual Israel-Germany
ministerial meeting, he said Track 17, the site from which 55,000 Berlin
Jews were deported to Nazi death camps, reminds Germany “of the darkest
chapter of our history”.
Commemorating
such atrocities should serve as a reminder that “German responsibility
for the crimes against humanity of the Shoah (Holocaust) has no
expiration date. The story does not end with a generation”.
Germany’s
debt to Nazi atrocities means “we will not tolerate anti-Semitism in
our country”, he insisted, adding that his country’s acknowledgement of
its chequered past makes its partnership with Israel all the more
sacred, as it seeks to work “together to make a peaceful, secure and
prosperous future”.
Also
addressing attendees, Netanyahu added that “my presence here today
symbolises the victory of our people over those who tried to annihilate
us”.
Dissecting
anti-Semitism into two distinct camps, he said overt prejudice was
characterised by hard-to-ignore “physical assaults, expulsions, pogroms
and murders”, whilst the more constant threat exists in “a prior wave of
blood libels and terrible defamations against the Jewish people”.
The
Jewish people could now rely on the defence of Israel’s army as he
pledged “the Government of Israel, like all of its predecessors, tells
the truth of Israel to the nations of the world”.
Ahead
of his arrival in Berlin, Netanyahu released a statement paying tribute
to the six million Jews killed by the Nazis during the Holocaust: ““From
the ashes of the Holocaust, we established a state and an army. Attacks
on the Jewish People and its state have not ceased since our
independence. The difference is that today we have an army to defend us
and we have a government that tells the world the truth."
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