Holocaust victims remembered, survivors honored in Germany

BERLIN — Holocaust Memorial Day in Germany this year focused on the millions of victims persecuted because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

The annual commemoration also addressed Jewish, Ukrainian, Sinti and Roma and other victims of the Nazi regime.

Members of sexual minorities had waited a long time in vain for recognition as Nazi victims, Bundestag President Bärbel Bas told the Bundestag on Friday during a ceremony.

“It is important for our culture of remembrance that we tell the stories of all those persecuted,” she said.

Holocaust survivor Rozette Kats agreed with Bas in her speech. “If certain groups of victims are even seen as less valuable than others, then in the end that means only one thing — that the National Socialist ideology lives on and unfortunately continues to have an effect today,” warned the visibly moved 80-yearold.

Kats was born into a Jewish family in 1942 and survived the Holocaust with a couple in Amsterdam, with whom she grew up under a false identity. Her biological family was murdered in Auschwitz.

Bas also mentioned the millions of Ukrainian murdered by the Nazis in World War II. Estimates show that 1.5 million Jews were exterminated by the Nazis, but this does not account for LGBTQ+, Communist or other victims.

“Many of the victims of the German war of extermination in the East were Ukrainians,” Bas said during the Bundestag’s memorial ceremony.

“I am shocked that Holocaust survivors were also killed by the current Russian attacks on Ukraine,” she said.

Many Holocaust survivors in Ukraine had been forced to leave the country because of the Russian war.

“I am touched that several of you have found refuge in Germany,” Bas said.

On Jan. 27, 1945, Red Army soldiers had liberated the survivors of the German concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz in occupied Poland. The Nazis had murdered more than 1 million people there. Since 1996, the date has been marked in Germany as Holocaust Memorial Day.

In all federal states, too, the atrocities of the Holocaust were commemorated in central memorial events, and wreaths were laid in many places.

In Germany’s most populous state of North Rhine Westphalia, the state’s leader Hendrik Wüst and representatives of Jewish associations appealed to anchor the memory of the Nazi crimes more firmly in society.

“It must be clear to all Germans: There is no German identity without Auschwitz,” said Wüst during the commemoration hour of the North RhineWestphalian parliament.

The Central Council of Jews suggested on Thursday that prospective history teachers should be required to visit concentration camp memorials.

In addition, politicians should create the conditions to include such visits with the necessary context in all curricula, also for pupils, explained Central Council President Josef Schuster.

Other countries also commemorated the Nazi victims on Friday.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, whose country has been under attack from Russia for nearly a year, commemorated the millions of victims of the Holocaust in a tweet.

“We know and remember that indifference kills as much as hatred,” he wrote in English.

Three of Zelenskyy’s great-uncles were executed by German occupiers during the Holocaust, according to a speech Zelenskyy, who is Jewish, gave alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netenyahu in January 2020. Zelenskyy’s grandfather fought the Nazis as a member of the USSR’s Red Army and came back alive from the front, he said.

Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, referring to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, called for resistance against a renewed genocide in Eastern Europe.

“Out of respect for the victims of the Holocaust and with the wisdom we have gained from this tragedy, today we must stand up resolutely and together against the criminal demons who are committing genocide in Eastern Europe,” he wrote on Facebook. “Solidarity and consistent support for Ukraine are effective ways to prevent history from coming full circle.”