German Perspective on the Holocaust

Thesis: Richard von Weizsacker, the president of the Federal Republic of Germany in 1985, reflects on the Holocaust and the need for remembrance and reconciliation.

• May 8th is a day of remembrance. Remembering means recalling an occurrence honestly and undistortedly so that it becomes a part of our beings


• We mourn the dead of war and tyranny, especially the six million Jews murdered in concentration camps.


• Hitler never concealed his hatred of Jews from the public, in fact he made the entire nation a tool of it.


• Hardly any nation in its history always remained free from blame for war or violence, but the genocide of Jews is unparalled in history.


• Perpetration was in the hands of a few people, but every German was able to experience what his Jewish compatriots had to suffer, from plain apathy and hidden intolerance to outright hatred.


• Who could remain unsuspecting after the burning of synagogues, the plundering, the deprivation of rights, and the violation of human dignity.


• Whoever opened his eyes and ears knew that the Jews were being deported.


• The scope of the destruction is beyond imagination, but the attempt by too many people not to take note of what was happening. When the truth of the Holocaust came out, many of us claimed that they had known nothing about it.


• Guilt is never collective, it is personal; everyone in that era should ask himself about his involvement then.


• Today's children cannot expect to wear a penitent robe just because they are Germans


• But they must accept the past. Whoever refuses to remember the inhumanity is prone to new risks of infection.


• We seek reconciliation with the Jewish race.


• If we tried to forget what occurred, we would impinge upon the faith of the Jews who survived and destroy the basis of reconciliation.