Looking back. Looking ahead. 2020-2025

158   SPEECHES | POLITICS AND SOCIETY Politics and Society ©Flossenbürg Memorial / T. Dashuber Dear Survivors and Liberators, Dear Relatives of the Victims, Honourable Minister-President, Esteemed Representatives of the Bavarian State Parliament, the Bundestag, the Bavarian State Government and the Federal Government, Distinguished Members of the Diplomatic Corps, Dear Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen, For anyone who did not experience it themselves, it is almost impossible to imagine the suffering, despair, hopelessness and utter humiliation endured by the prisoners in concentration camps – meat factories built to break and destroy human beings. Time and again, we ask ourselves how such things could   happen and how they could be tolerated or even supported   by society. How could German society accept that people   were deprived of basic human dignity because of their origin, political beliefs or faith, and that they were treated in ways   we would not inflict even on animals? We ask ourselves how quickly people can fall prey to a sense of superiority that supposedly gives them the right to determine the fate and lives of those deemed unworthy. We urgently need the reassurance that such atrocities will never happen again. For 80 years now, we have been remembering the events of the SecondWorldWar.We continue to study the anatomy of evil and the pathology of the human souls who were complicit in such crimes. At times we wonder whether the past 80 years might have afforded us enough time to teach future genera- tions and ensure that they are immune to such moral collapse. The devastation and suffering that swept across Europe   nine decades ago should have surely left behind a timeless catharsis – a legacy of remorse, deterrence and reparation. And yet it seems impossible to completely eradicate evil from the face of the world. In good times, it seems to lurk in the shadows, waiting for a new opportunity. It is like groundwater: forced back into the soil in one place, only to rise again some- where else. When we look at the world today, it becomes painfully clear that humanity has learned far too little. There is no guarantee, no antidote against such pathological behaviour. The war in former Yugoslavia in the 1990s once again opened the gates to genocide – on a scale we thought we would never see again. And Russia’s aggression against Ukraine provides daily exam- ples of human atrocities we hoped never to witness again: Once again, civilians are being raped and murdered, prisoners are being tortured, and children are being abducted for forced re-education. Much of the Russian population seems to accept the notion that it has the right to possess Ukraine, to kill its inhabitants and to dictate their future. And we cannot simply attribute everything to one psycho­ pathic tyrant. Unfortunately, both our past and present are filled with many such rulers. But the deeper question is how masses of people can follow such despots, blindly embracing beliefs and actions that contradict everything we were   taught – our upbringing, our faith, our basic moral principles. How can the values instilled in us crumble under the pressure of mass psychosis? Jiri Oberfalzer Deputy Chair of the Czech Senate 80th anniversary  of the liberation of Flossenbürg  27 April 2025