‘We remember,’ says Germany’s ambassador

MIRAH LANGER

This is what the recently sworn-in German ambassador to South Africa, Martin Schäfer, declared, partially in Hebrew, at a Holocaust memorial service in Forest Town, Johannesburg last week.

“Only if we tell all of you, tell the world, that we do not forget – then we have a right to hope that the people of this world, the Jews of this world… will hold out their hands to us and give us the chance to seek forgiveness,” he said.

Schäfer – who was conferred his official status as ambassador for South Africa on January 17 – addressed, with quiet gravitas, those gathered at the ceremony for the International Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust, held at the Johannesburg Holocaust & Genocide Centre.

“I think for the atrocious crime, like the one that was committed by Germans and in the name of Germany, there cannot be any forgiveness – maybe there must not be any forgiveness – but we can hope for it and we can hope that the world is willing to accept and believe us that we do not forget: Anachnu zochrim.”

Schäfer continued: “I bow in shame as a representative of the people and the nation who did all that.

“In front of the survivors and the deceased that were killed, that were annihilated, in the name of my country by the generation of my grandfather and great-grandfathers, I bow in shame.”

He said he was “deeply humbled” that in representing the perpetrators, nevertheless, he had been embraced by those gathered.

Dressed in a dark suit and black tie, Schäfer said he had debated his choice of colour for the tie.

“The 27^th of January is a day of commemoration… of the most atrocious acts that were probably ever committed on the soil of this earth. But at the same time, the 27^th of January is something of a liberation too.”

The day designated for the international commemoration, January 27, represents the date in 1945 when the Auschwitz concentration camp was liberated by Russian troops.

For the approximately 8 000 people left at Auschwitz, after the other prisoners were taken on the Death March, “it was over. It was over,” repeated Schäfer sorrowfully.

“There was no risk anymore to be massacred, to be gassified by the Germans.”

Nevertheless, he added, the decision of how the day needed to be commemorated remained with survivors and the Jewish community.

At pains to emphasise that he made no comparison between apartheid in South Africa and the Holocaust – “nothing can be compared to what happened in the name of Germany” – Schäfer said there was a point about the abolishment of apartheid that he wanted to make.

“I stand in shame before you that we, the Germans, did not make possible what happened on January 27 1945.”

Instead, it was soldiers from Russia who liberated Auschwitz and then other camps.

“We needed an incredible effort of the entire world to bring down this regime, this terrible ideology, this atrocious barbarism of the Germans, and defeat us.

“We did not do that ourselves. We failed dismally.”

Yet, for South Africans, it was different: “I just want to say that, contrary to Germans, you were able to bring about peaceful change – with the help of the world – but with your own hands.”

Schäfer then asked permission to deviate from protocol, going individually to shake hands, embrace and acknowledge each of the survivors present at the ceremony.

Earlier, Israel’s ambassador to South Africa, Lior Keinan, also addressed those attending the ceremony.

He assured the audience that Israel would continue its efforts at ensuring “the preservation of the memory of the Holocaust”.

Furthermore, he said, the country would fight against any attempts “to change the historical facts or compare the Holocaust to other events that happened later on – as severe as they were”.

“We will never forget and it will never happen again,” asserted Keinan.