Former German President warns on the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Buchinwald
Vienna (AP) – Germany commemorates the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi Buchinwald concentration camp on Sunday and warns of “radicalization and global transformation”
Governor Thuringia Mario Voigt and former German President Christian Wulff gave a speech at a ceremony held in Weimar City, attended by scores, which included several Holocaust survivors from all over Europe.
Vogt said Buchinwald was a “systematic dehumanized place” and that everything that happened in the death camp was intended to break the spirit and its dignity of the human race”. He also said that on October 7, Hamas’ attack on Israel indicated that “the intention to destroy the Jews is not the past. ”
Voigt refers to an attack by Palestinian militant group that killed about 1,200 people and took hostages, triggering a war between Israel and Hamas. According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, Israeli retaliatory attacks in the Gaza Strip killed at least 50,695 Palestinians and injured 115,338 people.
Former German President Christian Wulff sent a clear warning about the current global political situation in his speech.
“I can now – because of cruelty and radicalization and the global movement to the right – and I can now – and imagine that might happen then,” Wolf said.
He called for an active commitment to democracy and human protection. “We bear permanent, continuous, eternal responsibility, because we must never allow evil to prevail again,” he said.
Wolf also criticized anti-immigration and far-right alternatives for German parties. He said those of the “trivial” far-right parties “ignore the fact that an alternative to German ideology is to create a breeding ground for people to feel uncomfortable in Germany, and they are actually at risk.”
During the memorial event, Israeli officials opposed the memorial speech planned by philosopher Omri Boehm, the grandson of the Holocaust survivor and a well-known critic of the Israeli government and its operations in Gaza. This prompted organizers to withdraw their invitations.
Buchenwald was founded in 1937 and is located in today's eastern Germany. Of the 280,000 prisoners in Buchenwald and satellite camps, more than 56,000 were murdered or killed by the Nazis on April 11, 1945, due to starvation, disease, or medical experiments before the U.S. Army was liberated.
A wreath ceremony will be held in the front rolling telephone area of the camp on Sunday afternoon.
