Israeli President Reuven Rivlin called in the Bundestag for the fight against anti-Semitism and hate speech.
On Wednesday, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and his Israeli counterpart Reuven Rivlin participated in a “memory hour” in the German Bundestag to mark the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp by the Red Army in Nazi-occupied Poland.
“Racism, nationalism and fomenting war must not happen again”, – said Rivlin, whose speech in the German parliament was repeatedly interrupted by applause.
According to the Israeli president, Germany’s merits in preserving the memory of the crimes of Nazism are highly respected, today the country has become a “beacon of responsibility”, which “lies on a giant burden on the shoulders” of the Germans. However, Rivlin recalled the recent crimes committed in Germany on anti-Semitic and right-wing radical grounds, in particular, the attack by a single terrorist on a synagogue in the German city of Halle.
“I stand here to tell you that Israel and Germany are real partners. We stand together against this with our values”, – Rivlin added.