Looking back. Looking ahead. 2020-2025

SURVIVORS AND LIBERATORS | SPEECHES   137 Anyone who suffered under the Nazi dictatorship, as I did, knows that democracy is essential. There is no future worth living if its fundamental principle – respect for the dignity of every human being – is not upheld. The Basic Law of demo­ cratic Germany was drafted in response to the atrocities com- mitted under National Socialism. This is the message that we, the contemporary witnesses, want to convey to young people – now already in the third and fourth generations. And I have confidence in them. Today’s student performances – on topics such as anti-Romani sen- timent – show how thoughtfully and empathetically young people can confront the history of National Socialism and engage in remembrance work, whether through social media, graphic novels,WhatsApp channels or rap, rave and hip-hop music. I am certainly no expert in these fields, but I welcome all approaches and would even dance along if needed. Other examples include the Israeli-German student exchanges in many cities. I spent many years organising these programmes in Dachau. I have said it before and I will say it again: Young people need our support and they need political backing – and that ultimately means more funding. I understand this is not a popular demand. I am aware that Bavaria does a great deal for remembrance and commemoration – more than many other federal states. Yet even more funding is needed to expand historical and political education, to teach about antisemitism at schools, colleges and universities, and to raise awareness among law enforcement authorities. After all, what is the purpose of remembrance if it does not translate into a willingness to resist the early warning signs of extremism, as we can observe in surveys and in the electoral gains of the partly far-right AfD? The future of our democracy is at risk. And believe me: The countless people I encountered on my journey from the Kaunas Ghetto to the Stutthof concentration camp and the Kaufering/Landsberg camps – starved, beaten to death or shot – would want every act of remembrance to further the fight for a better world. And this is something the younger generation often grasps intuitively in conversations with con- temporary witnesses. I would also like to say a word about the descendants of the victims of National Socialist persecution – not only the children and grandchildren of Shoah survivors, but also the descendants of Sinti and Roma, of the political opponents of the Hitler regime, of his homosexual victims, and of all those who were marginalised, persecuted or even murdered at the hands of a German society shaped by Völkisch nationalism and racism. There are times where I sense a certain hesita- tion – even disapproval – when the descendants of survivors engage in remembrance work. At the Comité International de Dachau, we are currently discussing ways to involve them in our initiatives – and I appreciate the support we are getting from Gabriele Hammermann, Director of the Dachau Memorial. The disputes that flare up from time to time are completely unnecessary. Numerous studies show that the traumas of sur- vivors are passed down to their descendants. And when these descendants – though certainly not all of them – engage with their family history and its broader context, it can only be   beneficial and does not detract from the work of others.We are all shaped by the past in one way or another, and only by   learning from it can we shape the future – and that future,   I hope, is a shared one. This morning, my mind drifted once again to Abigail. You may have read about her: the three-year-old Jewish-American girl whose parents were shot in front of her by Hamas terrorists on 7 October. Her father had shielded her with his own body; she lay beneath his bloodied corpse until she managed to crawl to neighbours in her kibbutz – only to be taken as a hostage into the Gaza Strip. She spent her fourth birthday surrounded by the antisemitic hatred of Hamas. Abigail has since been released in a prisoner exchange, but will she ever truly be free in the life that lies ahead of her? I was not, after being forced at the age of 13 by the Germans and their Lithuanian   collaborators first into the ghetto and then, for years, into a life of constant terror in concentration camps. Yes, I survived. But the memory remains alive. I carry it with me wherever I go.Whenever I am eating, reading or absorbed in a conversation, I see my mother. All of a sudden, her figure emerges from the shadows at the far end of the room. She looks at me. Even now, in this very moment. You can’t see her. But I can. And I understand.When I woke up this morning,   I wondered how I might reach out to my esteemed audience and touch your hearts, which words I should choose. In my memoirs from 2014, I wrote:“I am terribly worried about my children, about all children. The Middle East is a powder keg.   A single spark would be enough, and they would all be con- sumed by the flames. I would most like to bring my family to Germany, for this country could be the safest place for Jews for the next hundred years”. Perhaps I think this way because   I am a Holocaust survivor – with persecution and death etched into my bones, flowing in my bloodstream until my heart stops beating. On 7 October – the day we call Black Shabbat – the