Chancellor Angela Merkel joined survivors of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in Berlin on Monday to open a series of events dedicated to the end of the Holocaust camp regime 70 years ago.
At the commemoration on Monday organized by the International Auschwitz Committee, Rabbi Yehuda Teichtal, Shliach and Rabbi of the Jewish Community in Berlin, met with Chancellor Merkel.
Rabbi Teichtal shared with the Chancellor that the best way to remember those who were murdered during the Holocaust is to continue to nurture and grow Jewish tradition.
Key to accomplishing that, Rabbi Teichtal said, is the strengthening of Jewish education.
“This is why much effort is being invested into increasing the number of children enrolled in Jewish Kindergartens and schools today, and into constructing the new state-of-the-art Jewish Campus in Berlin,” Teichtal said.
In her address at the memorial service Chancellor Merkel said that “German people have an everlasting responsibility to remember the crimes of Nazis.”
At the same time she expressed her contentment with the fact that more than 100,000 Jews currently live in Germany, reviving Jewish life in the country.
On Tuesday, around 300 former inmates, including 100 from Israel, are due to attend ceremonies at the site, along with German President Joachim Gauck and a dozen other world presidents and prime ministers.
I salute all our shluchim in Germany. They are only there for those of our brethren who have chosen to remain there post WW11 or who later immigrated there from other countries, mostly for economic reasons, I would suppose. Personally, the thought of freely choosing to live there for reasons other than those that motivate our shluchim, makes me cringe. Somehow ,I suspect that the average citizen in the street would rather not be bothered about, or reminded of the historically recent behavior of their government. No amount of diplomatic ceremonies can erase what was done to our people. Remember… Read more »