(de-news.net) – Representatives of Germany’s Jewish community used International Holocaust Remembrance Day to call for a renewed and demonstrable commitment to democratic principles, coupled with firm and sustained resistance to antisemitism. They cautioned that societal indifference or hesitation risks accelerating the gradual exclusion of Jewish voices from public life. In a published commentary, Josef Schuster, president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, maintained that the challenge was no longer abstract or prospective. He argued that organized actors were already working to push Jewish communities to the margins and that this reality made civic courage and democratic resolve an urgent necessity rather than a rhetorical aspiration. Absent clear and collective intervention, he warned, such developments would continue to intensify and become more deeply entrenched.
Comparable concerns were articulated by the Jewish public intellectual Michel Friedman, who assessed the current situation as one of marked deterioration for Jewish life in Germany. He characterized antisemitism as having risen sharply in both visibility and intensity, suggesting that familiar admonitions such as “never again” no longer described a preventative stance but instead reflected a stage in which the danger was already fully present. From this perspective, Friedman argued that symbolic remembrance alone was insufficient and that a consistent, outspoken confrontation of antisemitic attitudes and practices was required in everyday political and social life.
Holocaust survivors warn of resurgent hate rhetoric
The International Auschwitz Committee similarly framed Holocaust remembrance as increasingly overshadowed by contemporary political dynamics. Its vice president, Christoph Heubner, relayed that Holocaust survivors across different countries were expressing growing uncertainty about whether democratic societies and their citizens fully grasped the risks associated with hate-driven rhetoric. In particular, he pointed to language propagated by right-wing extremist and populist actors, which survivors viewed not merely as offensive speech but as a substantive threat to democratic stability. Such rhetoric, he indicated, was widely perceived as undermining the normative foundations that remembrance itself is meant to uphold.
These statements coincided with the 81st anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp. Across Germany, a wide range of commemorative events marked the murder of approximately six million Jews under National Socialism, situating historical memory within a broader public and institutional context. The Bundestag’s official memorial ceremony for the victims of National Socialism was scheduled to take place the following day, continuing a longstanding parliamentary tradition of remembrance.
Dobrindt reaffirms responsibility
Against this backdrop, Federal Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt reaffirmed the federal government’s commitment to the protection of Jewish life and Jewish institutions. He stressed that this obligation constituted a core responsibility of the German state, one that extended beyond its national borders and included determined action against what he described as imported forms of antisemitism. According to Dobrindt, the seriousness with which antisemitism was treated as a form of extremism was reflected in the continuous adjustment of security measures for Jewish facilities, which were calibrated in response to evolving threat assessments.
In outlining the broader scope of the challenge, the Minister emphasized that antisemitism in Germany could no longer be attributed solely to right-wing extremism. He pointed to a discernible increase in Islamist-motivated and left-wing extremist antisemitism, including manifestations linked to migration, and argued that all such forms required an equally resolute response. Holocaust Remembrance Day, he concluded, should therefore be understood as a moment of collective reflection, underscoring that the fight against antisemitism is not exclusively a task of the state but a shared responsibility borne by society as a whole.
