Looking back. Looking ahead. 2020-2025

138   SPEECHES | SURVIVORS AND LIBERATORS Survivors and Liberators spark I had foreseen was ignited by the Islamist Jew-haters of Hamas. How I wish that back then, in 2014, I had been wrong. But was I wrong about Germany? No. The German government stands alongside Israel. As international pressure on us grows, Israel needs support and solidarity to continue its fight against the terrorist organisation Hamas and its allies. This is not a campaign of revenge, as some claim. It is strictly necessary, be- cause defeat would mean the annihilation of the world’s only Jewish state – an objective entrenched in the founding charter of Hamas. Let me be clear: That would be Hitler’s ultimate posthumous triumph, after his regime murdered six million European Jews. But since 7 October, Germany has also shown another, disturb- ing side: jubilation on the streets and on social media – not just among people of Turkish or Arab descent, but also among ethnic Germans – over the worst massacre of Jews since the Shoah, with 1,200 men, women and children slaughtered, tortured and raped, thousands injured and 240 taken hostage. I am equally disturbed by the cold silence with which large parts of the cultural and artistic community have responded to this crime – including statements from so-called intellectuals claiming that the terrorist attack must be seen in its historical context as a liberation struggle. I ask myself what kind of freedom is being sought by those who have kidnapped a nine-month-old baby, Kfir Bibas, and are still holding him in the hell of captivity? On Thursday, the little redhead from Kibbutz Nir Oz turned one year old – if he is still alive. I think of the dramatic rise in anti-Jewish incidents and attacks on the streets, in schools and in the everyday lives of German Jews since 7 October – even here in Bavaria. I fully support the political calls for harsher penalties in response to antisemitic assaults and hate speech against the state of Israel. Yet that alone will not be enough.What we need is an educational campaign to combat antisemitism at schools and universities, in all educational institutions, and within law enforcement. And the accounts of contemporary witnesses must be at its core. That is a debt owed by you and me to the third generation. Dear audience, on this Holocaust Remembrance Day, let us rise together against antisemitism – whether it is aimed at Israel or at Jewish communities here in Germany – and fight for our democracy. This struggle is not only about us Jews; it is also about the future of your children in a democratic, free society. In closing, I would like to share some words from my grand- daughter Dana, who wrote to me before my trip to Bavaria. Perhaps they will move you as they moved me. She wrote:   “I want to apologise to you, dear Grandpa, on behalf of the third generation of the Holocaust. My generation has let you down.We have failed to eradicate antisemitism from the world. Today, it is more subtle, denying it is antisemitic, presenting itself as anti-Israel or pro-Palestinian.We still have a great deal of work to do. And I promise you – and so do my children – that we will never give up”. Abba Naor was born in Lithuania in 1928. At the age of thirteen, he and his Jewish family were deported to the Kaunas Ghetto. He survived the Stutthof concentration camp and the Kaufering X and I subcamps of Dachau. Today, he lives in Israel.