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Gerhard Trabert: As a doctor, he takes care of the homeless and refugees
Photo: Kay Nietfeld / dpa
The left candidate for the office of Federal President, Gerhard Trabert, drew a parallel to the situation of persecuted Jews in the Nazi era with regard to the social exclusion of poor and refugee people. At the digital start of the year for the left, the social physician quoted the Jewish youth Mosche Flinker, who died in the Bergen-Belsen Nazi concentration camp. He had previously noted that "historically it was a very different time."
In his diary, Flinker complained that society ignored the fate of the Jews: “It's like being in a large hall where many people are happy and dancing while a little person sits quietly in the corner. Now and then they take people out of this little group, drag them into an adjoining room and squeeze their throats. Maybe that just makes them have more fun,” is the quote that Trabert chose.
The 65-year-old said: »Why this quote?
Just as many Germans knew back then what was happening to the Jews, today we know what is happening to refugees in the Mediterranean, in Libyan and Syrian camps.
We know how poverty is increasing, we know about the increased death rate of poor people here in Germany too.
Comparing the richest with the poorest quarter, poor women die 4.4 and poor men 8.6 years earlier.
It's all a scandal."
The causes lie in economic, social, trade and foreign policy.
"We must not stop naming this, this form of structural violence," says Trabert.
The non-party Trabert was nominated by the left this week as a candidate for the election of the Federal President in February.
However, he is considered to have no chance, because in addition to the traffic light parties, the Union also supports the re-election of the incumbent President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
Trabert has been working as a doctor in the health care of homeless and refugees for decades.
He said about the situation today: »The courts also abuse their power to silence criticism in this democracy.
We must not accept that.« He referred to the Frenchman Stéphane Hessel and his criticism of financial capitalism and emphasized that »resistance« against anti-social politics was necessary.
The left must also become more profiled.
bbr/dpa