German President Frank Walter Steinmeier asked for forgiveness of German crimes committed during World War II as he commemorated the 80th anniversary of the ghetto uprising alongside the presidents of Poland and Israel in Warsaw on Wednesday.
On 19 April 1943, a group of Jews who lived in the Nazi-created Warsaw Ghetto rose against the German occupants in the largest retaliation against SS troops who murdered millions of European Jews during the Second World War. Wednesday marked the 80th anniversary of that event.
“Too few perpetrators were brought to justice. I am standing here today in front of you and asking for forgiveness of all the crimes that Germans did commit here,” Steinmeier said in his speech, as quoted by the Polish Press Agency (PAP).
“The appalling crimes that Germans committed here fill me with deep shame. But at the same time, it fills me with gratitude and humility that I can take part in this commemoration as the first German head of state ever,” he added.
Holocaust survivors and their descendants also took part in the remembrance event. Jewish and Christian clerics recited prayers, and a torch burned from part of the memorial, resembling a Jewish menorah.
Steinmeier’s speech comes just a day after the Polish government adopted a resolution on the need to “regulate” Polish-German relations regarding war reparations for the damages caused by German occupants during the Second World War.
“The relationship between Warsaw and Berlin is in a crisis since the populist right-wing Law and Justice (PiS, ECR) government got a bead on using every opportunity to show its Western neighbourhood in a bad light,” commented Süddeutsche Zeitung.
Considering the circumstances, Polish President Andrzej Duda “did a good thing” by inviting Steinmeier to the remembrance in Warsaw, journalist and Holocaust survivor Marian Turski told SZ. “It is in the Polish interest to have friendly neighbours,” he said.
SZ’s journalist Viktoria Grossmann called the two presidents’ meeting “almost astonishing,” given the serious problems in relations between both governments.
Hitler’s Germany invaded Poland in 1939. The following year, the occupants set up the ghetto, the largest of many in occupied Poland. The Jewish ghetto uprising grew after 265,000 people, including women and children, were rounded up in 1942 and murdered at the death camp in Treblinka.
(Aleksandra Krzysztoszek | EURACTIV.pl)
Source: euractiv.com
