Grapevine October 8, 2021: Taking a moral stance

• Published date: 08 October 2021
• Author: GREER FAY CASHMAN
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

This will be Merkel's sixth visit, and her last as chancellor. Both Merkel and Steinmeier have been outspoken on many occasions in their condemnation of rising antisemitism in Germany and their insistence that Germany must bear responsibility for Nazi crimes against humanity in general and the Jewish people in particular. Steinmeier said so again when he met in Ukraine with President Isaac Herzog and at Holocaust remembrance sites that he visited.

"The mass murder of Kyiv's Jews was a meticulously planned crime – planned and carried out by members of the SS, the security police and the Wehrmacht. All of them were involved," he said. "How I wish that I could state this as an unconditional truth. How I wish that I could say: We Germans have learned the lessons of history once and for all, but I cannot. It pains and angers me that antisemitism is, in Germany too – in Germany in particular – gaining strength once again."

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Merkel is expected to voice similar sentiments when she arrives in Israel on Sunday, as did outgoing German ambassador Susanne Wasum-Reiner, at this year's German Unity Day celebration. On her last official visit to Yad Vashem, Merkel will be accompanied by Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, Yad Vashem Chairman Dani Dayan and Chairman of the Yad Vashem Council Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau.

During the visit, she will be guided through the Flashes of Memory: Photography during the Holocaust exhibition as well as the Museum of Holocaust Art. Afterwards, Merkel will view a number of items from the Holocaust period that will eventually be housed in the new Collections Center, which is one of the elements of the Moshal Shoah Legacy Campus currently under construction at Yad Vashem. The Collections Center is being funded in part by the Federal Republic of Germany. Afterwards, Merkel will meet with Kindertransport survivor Henry Foner, renowned author of Postcards to a Little Boy. This authentic, moving book presents the illustrated postcards and letters sent by Foner's father as well as other relatives and friends to the young refugee in the UK. Included in the book are the translations of the missives, and an historical afterword on the Kindertransport rescue effort in which 10,000 Jewish children – many of who never saw their parents or other close relatives again – were transported to England.

Merkel will also...