Holocaust survivor addresses lawmakers
BERLIN — A survivor of the Nazis’ Auschwitz death camp praised Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to open her country’s doors to asylum seekers in 2015, telling lawmakers Wednesday at a special parliamentary session commemorating the victims of the Holocaust it was a sign of Germany’s “exemplary” conduct following the war.
Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, a 92-year-old German-born Jew who survived Auschwitz with her sister but lost her parents in the Holocaust, said that after the war they emerged as refugees in a world of closed borders.
“Now they are opened, thanks to an incredibly generous and courageous gesture made here,” she said to wide applause, with Merkel sitting not far away.
International Holocaust Remembrance Day fell this year on Saturday, 73 years after the Soviet army liberated the Auschwitz death camp in occupied Poland.
Germany’s parliament holds a special session annually to mark the day, commemorating not only the victims of the Holocaust but also those who helped the persecuted and others who resisted Adolf Hitler’s tyranny.
The event this year was the first at which lawmakers from the antimigrant nationalist Alternative for Germanyparty were present after they won seats in parliament for the first time in September’s election.
They didn’t join the applause for LaskerWallfisch’s coments about Merkel’s migrant policy, but did when she spoke out against Holocaust denial and antiSemitism, as well as a standing ovation after the speech.
Lasker-Wallfisch, who moved to Britain after the war, urged Germany and other nations to remain vigilant in fighting antiSemitism, saying that people needed to see one another as individuals and overcome hatred.