Dear Former Citizens of Hamburg,
Dear Family Members,
Excellency,
Vice President of the Hamburgische Bürgerschaft,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

In the name of the Senate of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, I´d like to welcome you most warmly to our city.

I am pleased that, once more, so many of you have accepted our invitation. You have travelled a long way to get here. Of our 45 guests, 24 come from Israel, 13 from the United States, five from Great Britain, and three from New Zealand.

In particular I´d like to point out the members of the generation of those who once themselves experienced persecution and expulsion by the National Socialists. These include Mr Isaac Gibson, Mr Peter Idlau and Mr Shraga Sperling. It is the first time that these three have accepted our invitation to visit Hamburg. This generation also includes three other guests: Ms Noa Leserowitz, Mr Kurt Goldschmidt and Mr Arie Nir. They are participating in our visitors’ program for the second time, on a private basis.

Many of those we have invited are the children of those that were persecuted, or family members of the third generation. They are interested in learning about the lives and experiences their parents, grandparents and relatives had in what was once their home country.

Please let me extend a special welcome to all of the persecuted citizens, to all of their children and grandchildren in the next generation, as well as to all of their other relatives.

You have been in Hamburg since Tuesday, in our growing, dynamic metropolis. We are a cosmopolitan city today and it´s what we want to be. People speak a great variety of languages on our streets and in our homes. Many of our citizens have roots in other countries, close and far away. We regard this variety of backgrounds, cultures and languages as an enrichment. You will have noticed that the people of Hamburg are approachable and friendly I am certain of that. An attitude like this is a prerequisite for ensuring that Hamburg can be a place full of good impressions and interactions.

At the same time, for you, this visit is a trip to the past. For our city is the one from which you yourself, or your parents or grandparents, were once cast out. A look back at their path toward emigration enables you to envision the injustices committed by the so-called Third Reich: people being marginalized, persecuted, and relocated by force.

You are also reminded of the murderous violence to which your relatives, friends and acquaintances were subjected. This thought still causes pain today, again and again. This is the reason why many of the survivors have remained silent, to protect themselves or their children. While they were building a new existence, they wanted to look forward, not back.

While the victims had to find their own ways of dealing with the traumatic long-term effects of the terror to which they had been subjected, figuring out how they could manage to disregard them, as they simply had to, many of the perpetrators, supporters and tacit accomplices were able to live a comfortable life enabled by collective amnesia and excuses.

For years, many Germans regarded National Socialism as a kind of accident” in German history, as something that suddenly deviated from the course of history. According to this theory, the real perpetrators were the Nazi leaders like Hitler and Himmler, Heydrich and Höß. Then there were several real accomplices. But the great majority had supposedly only done their duty or had been seduced”.

We had to refrain from this approach and I am particularly pleased that you, Mr Ambassador, have joined us in Hamburg today.
 
Despite the widespread inability to communicate with one another, Israel and the Federal Republic of Germany did succeed in developing a relationship. 50 years ago, in May 1965, the two nations established diplomatic relations. It could hardly be expected, and was not taken for granted in the least, that these initial steps would develop into a close friendship. Yet this friendship developed as a result of the many varied contacts and relationships in business and trade, education, science and culture. This cooperation is not static, but vibrant.

Right before this reception, representatives of the Yad Vashem memorial and the Senator for the Ministry of Schools and Vocational Training met in the Bürgermeistersaal and concluded a cooperation agreement. Our shared aim is to ensure that Hamburg’s pupils, teachers, and young adults in non-school contexts remain knowledgeable about the history of Jewish life in Germany and in Hamburg. The Holocaust will remain a central topic here.

There are already a number of examples in Hamburg for an age appropriate, diversified way of getting to know about Jewish life on a deeper basis. During the program arranged for your visit, you will have heard about the Geschichtomat” the digital history guide. Pupils at the Kaiser-Friedrich-Ufer Grammar School are able to discover Jewish history and culture through this learning model, which is unparalleled in Germany. They go out and search for traces in their part of the city. Here they are dealing with historical places, persons or events.

They also learn about Jewish life today, to the extent it developed again after the war. The young people actively learn and demonstrate their knowledge: They do research, they conduct interviews, and they visit museums and archives. They write texts, take photos and produce video clips. The finished contributions are then placed on a special website which becomes their digital map of the city. The entire project is guided by specialists and experts in media education.

In academics, it has become almost a tradition for the University of Hamburg to recognize outstanding research and papers on Jewish history, religion and culture with the awarding of the Joseph Carlebach Prize. This prize has a triple impact: In the first place, it preserves the memory of Joseph Carlebach, the last Chief Rabbi of Altona and Hamburg. Secondly, it is dedicated to his daughter, Prof Dr Miriam Gillis-Carlebach, because she never ceases in her efforts toward cooperation, understanding and joint remembrance. And finally, it stimulates young academics to deal intensively with Jewish spheres of life. Prize winners for 2015 are here with us today.

One of the award-winning papers, which was jointly compiled by five students, deals with the Stolpersteine stumbling blocks, literally in the Grindelviertel. Stolpersteine are the small brass plaques that have been set in the sidewalk in front of the former homes of Nazi victims. By now, there are more than 4,800 of these memorial plaques in Hamburg.

Research into the lives that are represented by the names on these brass plaques has not yet been conducted in all cases. This also applies to many of the former Jewish residents of the Grindelviertel. A student who is able to find out something about the life and fate of these individuals adds more than just a couple of mosaic stones to the body of historic knowledge. Researching and presenting such biographies often first enables an understanding of what the perpetrators, helpers and onlookers actually did to the victims of Nazism. These reconstructed life stories vividly show the deeper meaning of expressions like Aryanisation,” pogrom” or ghetto.”

The Geschichtomat,” as well as biographical studies inspired by the stumbling blocks, and, of course, cooperation with Yad Vashem all of this stands most of all for a lasting commitment to the memory of the Holocaust. In Germany, and here in Hamburg, we keep alive the memory of the genocide that was planned and carried out by Germans.

By now, there are fewer and fewer witnesses of that era left. But it is still extremely important to have people who can bear personal witness for conversations in schools and at memorials. Their presentations and interviews result in empathy and are thus an important key to understanding. In the future, videos of contemporary witnesses, diaries and memoirs will be the only media available to directly convey, to a certain extent, these personal experiences and the experience of persecution.

It is not only the number of such witnesses that is changing. Our society is also changing. A look at Hamburg, at the classrooms in this city, makes this obvious: Germany is a country of immigration. The family backgrounds of many students vary greatly. Their parents may come from the Balkans or Eastern Europe, for example, from the European or African Mediterranean countries, or from Arabic countries in the Middle East. Lesson plans must take this into consideration.

It is revealing to note what education experts have discovered: interest in the history of Holocaust is not that dependent on whether the student’s parents and grandparents have always had a German passport. Experts advise using the material so that it reflects the way the students experience the world and the possibilities they have. One of these realms of experience is the urban space, the districts and parts of Hamburg, in which our students live and learn. History can begin on one’s own doorstep.

Discussing the Holocaust in the schools also provides starting points for discussing current global problems, such as asylum, fleeing from one’s country, serious human rights violations, xenophobia or perceived social exclusion within one’s own country. In this process, the specific political and historical context of these topics must always be made clear to all students. Otherwise the danger exists that one might try to dispute the uniqueness of the Holocaust, as well as its special position in the history of violence in the 20th century.

It is encouraging that neither Hamburg nor Germany stand alone in looking for contemporary ways of communicating the meaning of the Holocaust. This in-depth discussion became an international one some time ago. We in Hamburg are not hesitant about looking out into the world in order to learn from others.

This view to the world has evolved in our city in the course of time. It is very closely connected to our port, which still remains the real heart of the city. A connection to the outside,” to the world, to exchange and trade, remains an indispensable part of the way we see ourselves.

Ladies and Gentlemen,
During the week you spend here, you will discover how diverse, cosmopolitan and historically aware Hamburg is today. I hope that at the end of your stay you will be able to say: It was the right decision to come to Hamburg, to the city in which you yourself and your family have roots. I hope that you will return home enriched by impressions of positive encounters and conversations, and that you will have fond memories when you look back on this visit to Hamburg.
Many thanks.

Es gilt das gesprochene Wort.