De Duitse Bondsminister Karin Prien:
Amsterdam is the city where I was born and where I studied. My mother was born here, my parents met here, and my grandparents found refuge here from Nazi persecution. I’m still immensely and deeply grateful to Amsterdam for that!
Amsterdam is a part of my life. Amsterdam is a piece of home, where I love to return. It’s a great honor for me to speak here today.Thank you for giving me the opportunity to stand here today.
Eighty-seven years ago today, synagogues in Germany went up in flames. Jewish shops were looted and destroyed, cemeteries desecrated, people hunted down, beaten, murdered. Many looked on indifferently, most looked away: neighbours, supposed friends, coworkers.
The 9th of November 1938, was the moment when discrimination, exclusion, and disenfranchisement of Jews turned into open violence. It foreshadowed the Shoah.
This day remains a day of deep sorrow and reflection. And it remains a constant reminder: we are obliged to keep the memory alive. Always. Not as a ritual, but as an attitude towards life, as a compass. Today and forever.
We remember. And we commemorate the people who were marginalised, persecuted, and murdered. We say their names and tell their stories.
Today, I had the opportunity to visit the Anne Frank House again after many years. The story of the Frank family, Anne’s story, shaped my childhood and my youth. Her fate became a symbol of how cruel the Nazis, their henchmen, supporters, and profiteers were.
The Anne Frank house keeps the memory alive by providing valuable and contemporary educational work that encourages young people to reflect. And it shows them: I can take action against hatred and discrimination. Each and every one of us continues to bear responsibility: for ensuring that history does not repeat itself.
It moves me deeply to be able to speak to you here in the Portuguese Synagogue in Amsterdam. I stand here as a representative of Germany. And thus of the country that brought such immeasurable suffering upon Europe and the world.
At the same time, I stand here as the granddaughter of Jewish grandfathers, as a descendant of large Jewish families with German and Dutch roots. My maternal grandfather fled to the Netherlands in the 1930s to escape persecution and murder by the Nazis. Here, too, he had to go into hiding. But he survived. Unlike most of my family.
For many Jews, however, persecution did not end after the Nazi era. My paternal grandparents, who were living in Czechoslovakia at the time, had only a brief respite. They then fled to the Netherlands to escape the communist dictatorship.
The feeling of being uprooted, of not being safe, of being vulnerable to persecution and discrimination at any time, has remained in my family. It is also part of my identity.
And this feeling of insecurity is justified.
Since the terrible events of the 7th of October 2023, we have witnessed once again how threatened Jewish life is – in Germany, in the Netherlands, everywhere.
Or as you, Ms Durlacher, put it in the German daily newspaper “Die Welt”: “The taboo against hatred, established out of courtesy after the Holocaust, has proven to be a fragile fabric. And now it is torn. The beast is back.”
And that has consequences. Jews hide their identity, avoid certain places, and retreat into invisibility so as not to become victims of discrimination and open violence.
As a child, I too learned that it was better not to talk about one’s Jewish roots, especially in the country of the perpetrators.
But as an adult — just a few years ago — I decided to take a different approach. Because it cannot be tolerated in silence when Jews have to live in fear in Europe, 80 years after the Shoah.
You know:
Exactly one year ago, here in Amsterdam, we saw how quickly hatred can turn into violence, and how much online hatred contributes to mobilisation. Here in Amsterdam, you were very close to the riots before and after the Ajax Amsterdam vs. Maccabi Tel Aviv game in the Europa League; you may even have witnessed them.
I also spoke with David Beesemer from Maccabi about this today. I can still feel the shock and horror. Jews in Europe and around the world are afraid, and they have reason to be afraid. And they are disappointed. Because they feel less and less understanding, support, and solidarity from the non-Jewish population, and instead encounter silence and indifference. Despite knowing about history, despite the assurances of “Never again!” It is precisely this oppressive indifference that runs like a thread from Kristallnacht to the present day.
Nevertheless, I have hope — or rather, confidence, in the spirit of Immanuel Kant, to use my own reason instead of being guided by fears or pessimism. For the first time in a long time, the signs in the Middle East conflict are looking better. I was able to experience this personally during my visit to Israel a week ago. The young people in Israel, Jews and Arabs alike, gave me hope.
And I see the people who do not look away: who are involved in the many civil society initiatives in Europe that work against anti-Semitism, who shape historical and political education, who raise awareness and campaign against hatred: in sports, in schools, in working life, and on social media. Dialogue and encounters between people in Germany, Europe, and Israel remain crucial, as does interfaith dialogue.
My ministry supports this work, and we will continue to do so. We are responsible for establishing the Yad Vashem Education Center in Germany. A place where memory and the present come together.
The many people who often work behind the scenes but tirelessly stand up for our liberal democracy, reconciliation and peace, and against antisemitism and hatred of people — they give me hope that history will not repeat itself. That Jewish life in Europe can once again be visible and safe.
I bow my head in deep sorrow before all the victims of the Shoah. And I take the memory of them as a mandate to take action against antisemitism, against hatred and indifference, to work for universal human rights, for freedom and liberal democracy – every day. Todah rabbah. Dank u wel. Vielen Dank.
Thank you.
