Neste vídeo há algumas passagens do discurso histórico do presidente da República da Alemanha, Frank-Walter Steinmayer, em Yad Vashem, no dia 23 de Janeiro de 2020.
O presidente alemão começou por se dirigir à assembleia em hebraico, e a seguir passou para inglês. Por respeito às vítimas e ao local, não fez o discurso na sua própria língua, o alemão.
O discurso completo, em inglês, pode ser visto
aqui. Partilho o texto:
“Blessed
be the Lord for enabling me to be here at this day.”
What a
blessing, what a gift,
it is for me
to be able to speak
to you here today at Yad Vashem
Here at Yad Vashem burns the Eternal
Flame in remembrance of the victims of the Shoah.
This place reminds us of
their suffering. The suffering of millions.
And it reminds us of their lives – each individual life.
This place
remembers Samuel Tytelman,
a keen swimmer
who won competitions for
Maccabi Warsaw, and
his little sister
Rega, who helped her mother
prepare the family meal for Sabbath.
This place remembers Ida Goldish and her
three year-old son Vili.
In October, they were deported from the Chisinau
ghetto.
In the bitter cold of January,
Ida wrote her
last letter to
her parents –
I quote: “I regret
from the very
depth of my
soul that, on
departing, I did
not realise the importance
of the moment,
[...] that I
did not hug
you tightly, never releasing you from my arms.”
Germans deported
them. Germans burned
numbers on their forearms. Germans
tried to dehumanise
them, to reduce
them to numbers, to erase all
memory of them in the extermination camps. They did not succeed.
Samuel and Rega, Ida and Vili were human beings. And as human beings, they live on in our
memory. Yad Vashem gives
them, as it
says in the
Book of Isaiah,
“a momument and a name”.
I, too, stand before this monument as a human
being – and as a German.
I stand before
their monument. I
read their names.I hear their stories. And I bow in deepest sorrow.
Samuel and Rega,
Ida and Vili were human beings.
And this
also must be
said here: The
perpetrators were human beings. They were Germans.
Those who
murdered, those who planned and helped in the murdering, the many who silently
toed the line: They were Germans. The industrial mass murder of six million
Jews, the worst crime in the history of humanity, it was committed by my
countrymen. The terrible war,
which cost far
more than 50
million lives, it originated from my country.
75 years after
the liberation of Auschwitz, I stand before you all as President of Germany – I
stand here laden with the heavy, historical burden of guilt.
Yet at the same
time, my heart is filled with gratitude for
the hands of
the survivors stretched
out to us,
for the new
trust given to us
by people in Israel and
across the world,
for Jewish life flourishing in Germany.
My soul is moved
by the spirit of reconciliation, this spirit which opened up a new and peaceful
path for Germany and Israel, for Germany, Europe and the countries of the
world.
The Eternal Flame
at Yad Vashem
does not go
out.
Germany’s responsibility
does not expire. We want to live up to our responsibility. By this, you should
measure us.
I stand before you, grateful for this miracle of reconciliation,
and I wish I could say that our remembrance has made us immune to evil.
Yes, we
Germans remember. But sometimes
it seems as though we understand the past better than the present. The
spirits of evil
are emerging in
a new guise,
presenting their antisemitic,
racist, authoritarian thinking as an answer for the future, a new solution to
the problems of our age.
I wish I could say that we Germans have learnt from
history once and for all. But I cannot say that when hatred is spreading. I cannot say
that when Jewish
children are spat
on in the schoolyard, I cannot say that when crude antisemitism is
cloaked in supposed criticism of Israeli policy. I cannot say that when only a
thick wooden door prevents a right wing
terrorist from causing
a bloodbath in
a synagogue in
the city of Halle on Yom Kippur.
Of course, our age is
a different age.
The words are not the same.
The perpetrators are not the same.
But it is the same evil.
And there
remains only one answer: Never again! Nie wieder!
That is why there cannot be
an end to remembrance.
This
responsibility was woven
into the very
fabric of the
Federal Republic of Germany from day one. But it tests us here and
now. This Germany
will only live
up to itself,
if it lives
up to its historical responsibility. We fight
antisemitism! We resist the poison that is nationalism! We protect Jewish
life! We stand with Israel!
Here at Yad
Vashem, I renew this promise before the eyes of the world.
And I know that I
am not alone.
Today we join together to say: No to
antisemitism! No to hatred!
From
the horror of
Auschwitz, the world
learned lessons once before.
The nations of the world built
an order of peace, founded upon human rights and international law.
We Germans
are committed to this order and we want to defend it, with all of you.
Because
this we know: Peace can be destroyed, and people can be corrupted.
Esteemed Heads of
State and Government,
I am grateful
that together we make
this commitment today: A world that
remembers the Holocaust. A world without genocide.
“Who knows if we will
ever hear again the magical sound of life?
Who knows if
we can weave
ourselves into eternity
– who knows?”
Salmen Gradowski
wrote these lines
in Auschwitz and
buried them in a tin can under a crematorium.
Here at Yad
Vashem they are
woven into eternity: Salmen Gradowski, Samuel and Rega Tytelman, Ida and Vili Goldish. They
were all murdered. Their lives were
lost to unfettered hatred. But our remembrance of them will defeat the
abyss. And our actions will defeat
hatred.
By this, I stand.
For this, I hope.
Blessed be the Lord for enabling me to be here at this day.
