"There can be no final stroke": Bundestag commemorates the victims of National Socialism

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Bundestag President Bärbel Bas (SPD): “It is important that we tell the stories of all those who were persecuted”

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IMAGO/Jean MW / IMAGO/Future Image

For a long time, many were left alone with the injustice they had suffered: On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Bundestag commemorated the victims of National Socialism and focused on people who were persecuted because of their gender identity or sexual orientation.

"Anyone who did not conform to National Socialist norms lived in fear and distrust," said Bundestag President Bärbel Bas (SPD).

This affected many people who were deported to concentration camps because of their sexuality.

And even after the end of National Socialism, there was "no end to state persecution" for these people.

Paragraph 175 of the Criminal Code continued to apply in both parts of Germany.

We still know too little about the fate of many groups of victims, said Bas.

This applies, for example, to lesbian women who have been persecuted as »asocial« – and criminalization based on gender identity has been made invisible.

»It is important for our culture of remembrance that we tell the stories of all those who were persecuted.«

Bas added that some people would think that Germany had already dealt with the Shoah enough.

"That is a mistake.

There can be no line of closure.«

Holocaust survivor tells her story

Holocaust survivor Rozette Kats then described how she was separated from her family as a child.

Her parents and her brother were deported to Auschwitz and murdered, while she grew up with a foster family.

She didn't find out until she was six that her name wasn't Rita.

"Your real parents were murdered in Auschwitz, they said." This knowledge was far too terrible to understand as a child.

Her conclusion: »I only have to wear the mask of the non-Jewish child«.

Her double life of more than 50 years made her ill.

It was only when she met other people with similar experiences that she was freed.

"That was my coming out." It makes people sick when they have to hide and deny themselves.

For example, homosexual men were not remembered at Holocaust commemoration events for many years.

That is wrong.

»If certain groups of victims are seen as less valuable than others, then this means that the National Socialist ideology lives on.«

"I was sick in my soul"

LGBTQ activist Klaus Schirdewahn recalled the continuity of the persecution from his own experience.

In 1964 he was arrested for having a relationship with a man.

"The only way for me to avoid prison was to start therapy to 'cure' me of my homosexuality," he says.

As a result of this therapy, his nature, his life, was denied.

»A forced double life began for me«.

He was "sick of the soul".

"What was criminal law during National Socialism was still valid for me and many others in 1969." The dignity of homosexuals was still violated in the Federal Republic for a long time.

The commemoration is "a sign of recognition".

Before the commemoration, Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) recalled Germany's historical responsibility for the murder of millions of Jews during the National Socialist era.

"The suffering of six million innocently murdered Jews is unforgotten - just like the suffering of the survivors," he wrote on Twitter.

To ensure that this never happens again, Germany's historical responsibility is remembered on Holocaust Remembrance Day.

On January 27, 1945, the Auschwitz concentration camp was liberated by Red Army soldiers.

The day has been a day of remembrance for the victims of National Socialism in Germany since 1996.

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