As the world marks the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camp Auschwitz, the Central Council of Jews in Germany has called for more initiatives to facilitate visits to authentic sites of Nazi crimes.
Josef Schuster, the council’s president, said: “Anyone who has been to Auschwitz does not question why the memory of the Shoah [Holocaust] must be kept alive. Anyone who has been to Auschwitz understands why the memory of the Shoah can have no parallels.”
On January 27, 1945, Soviet soldiers liberated the German concentration and extermination camp in Nazi-occupied Poland.
The 80th anniversary of the date falls on Monday, with delegations from more than 40 countries expected to attend the central ceremony at the memorial on the site of the former Nazi camp in modern-day Poland.
Germany, the perpetrator nation, is expected to be more prominently represented than ever before, with a large delegation, including President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Bundesrat President Anke Rehlinger.
The Nazis had deported around 1.3 million people to the camp. Approximately 1.1 million were murdered, including about 1 million European Jews. Since 1996, the day has been a national day of remembrance in Germany.
Schuster said that the commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz is never routine, but this year it should prompt even more reflection.
He explained that there are fewer and fewer witnesses of the Shoah, as the Holocaust in known in Hebrew, and more people in Germany have no familial connection to the time of Nazism.
The 80th anniversary is a “milestone in the remembrance of this rupture in civilization,” Schuster said.
Survey: Half of Germans support mandatory visits
Half of Germans over the age of 18 would support mandatory concentration camp memorial visits, according to a survey conducted by the YouGov polling institute to mark the anniversary.
In the poll published on Sunday, 42% were opposed to the idea of mandatory visits, and 8% did not provide an answer.
Currently, such a requirement exists only in certain federal states, such as Bavaria and Saarland.
Last year, the centre-right coalition in the lower house of parliament, or Bundestag, called for a nationwide mandate that pupils should visit a concentration camp memorial at least once during their schooling as part of a motion to combat anti-Semitism.
Of those surveyed by YouGov on behalf of dpa, only just over half, or 52%, had visited a former concentration camp at least once. One in four has been to Auschwitz.
YouGov surveyed 2,194 Germans over the age of 18 between January 17 and 20 for the survey.
In the age group of 18 to 29 years, a particularly high number — 61% — reported having been to a former concentration camp at least once. Among those over the age of 70, the figure drops to only 42%.
A total of 76% of respondents feel well informed about the Holocaust, while only 16% feel poorly informed.
A proportion of 22% believe there should be more remembrance in Germany of the mass murder of Jews in Europe under the Nazis.
In contrast, 19% feel that there is too much commemoration, with 48% of far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) voters holding this view.
A slight majority of 52% are satisfied with the current level of remembrance efforts.
Vice Chancellor Habeck calls for new approach
Germany needs a new approach to its culture of remembrance, Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck said on Sunday.
Writing in Berlin’s Tagesspiegel newspaper, Habeck, the lead candidate for the Greens in the February 23 elections, paid tribute to the work done on the commemoration of Nazi-era crimes over past decades.
“But we stand today before the renewed task of keeping the culture of remembrance alive, so that it keeps us awake, under new conditions, with new challenges,” he wrote.
“In many respects we are living through a period of transition,” Habeck wrote.
He noted that few of the perpetrators of Nazi crimes were still alive, and that only a few victims could still bear witness. Memory and horror were increasingly less connected with the parents or grandparents of people today.
“In addition, our country has long become a home for millions of people with a migration background, who have no biographical link to German responsibility for the Nazi past,” Habeck wrote.
History was also being distorted, with few checks on this process. “A new approach is needed to justify the need for remembrance and to explain the ‘Never Again’ message,” he wrote.
