Remarks by German Consul-General Dr. Wolfgang Vorwerk at the Commemoration Service for Yom HaShoah on April 15,2007

Thank you, Jim Segel for your kind words of introduction.

On this Yom HaShoah, the third Holocaust Memorial Day, which I have the privilege of joining you, I, as a German, bow my head before all of you honored survivors of the Holocaust and your families, before the two honored families and all “Righteous Among the Nations” - individuals who acted virtuously and made a difference.

How can I address this theme – to act virtuously and make a difference - from a German perspective?

In your moving account, Rosian, you described sufferings by Lithuanian Jews which we cannot even begin to imagine, but it all happened.

The tragedy of the Jews in Europe, the Holocaust, was unparalleled, without comparison or precedent in history.

Once the Nazis had seized power, the failure took many forms in Germany, not only the form of looking away.

All German state organisations and ministries, the military elite, business, banks, academia and the medical professions were directly involved in the Holocaust.

There were men and women who maintained their decency, it is true, but they were few. We know that they alone could no longer avert the disaster.

But those few left a legacy, a lesson learnt for us.

We have to talk about them to our children, not to relativize or belittle crimes which are without precedent and parallel, but to show them that elementary humane, civil behavior was possible.

Let me name one example because I am German Consul General to New England.

One of my first trips as newly installed Consul General in 2004 was – together with my wife Heide and my son Alexander – to see the now 96 year old widow of Helmuth James Graf von Moltke, Freya Graefin von Moltke, living in Norwich, Vermont.

Their former home in Kreisau/Silesia, nowadays Poland. a gathering place for a resistance group of Germans against Hitler, later called by the SS the
“Kreisau Circle”, discovered and all executed, including her husband in January 1945: executed for resisting, for their vision of Germany as part of a federal European state, a united Europe, in which Christian morals – Judeo-
Christian morals - and social reforms again determine politics.

These are not my words but those of Chancellor Angela Merkel, marking the 100th anniversary of the birth of Helmuth James Graf von Moltke in March 2007 in Berlin.

And anyone who has had the privilege of getting to know this strong and upright woman, Freya Graefin von Moltke, to listen to her talking about her husband, who also warned and helped Jews to get out of Germany, not only
to France or Holland, but far away, is bound to ask himself on his way home from Norwich to Boston: Would I have been strong enough to resist, to say “no”? Like Freya von Moltke’s husband? Would I have acted like the German Consul Georg Ferdinand Duckwitz from an upright Bremen family, whom we know, who in 1971 was awarded the “Righteous Among the Nations” honor by Israel for his participation in the rescue of several thousands of Danish Jews in 1943?

There is no escaping from this question and I have had the same question again and again, when I have been speaking to Israel Arbeiter, Rosian Zerner, Stephen Ross or to those many of you I have had the privilege to
meet.

One is tempted to say: yes of course, but the only answer is: there can be no answer.

Because no one is entitled in retrospect to see themselves on the side of the victims, on the side of the righteous, on the side of the heroes or resistance fighters.

I cannot even say: yes of course, I would have extended a hand of help and hope to my Jewish neighbors, I would have supplied them with food or I would have brought my friend, a Jewish lawyer, into safety in the turmoils of the Reichskristallnacht, like my grandparents did.

We cannot opt out of Germany’s past by assuming a stance of moral superiority, as Federal President Herzog rightly said in a speech in the Plenary Chamber of the German Bundestag on January 27, 1999.

This is an issue of personal morality and honesty.

Therefore, we must prepare our children for being adults, we must develop their “power of thought, self-determination and non-participation,” as the famous philosopher and social scientist Theodor Adorno formulated it.

This has been and still is the basis of our Holocaust education in order to prevent Auschwitz from ever recurring.

It is about preparing the young generation of Germans, and some are with me today, standing in line to take this responsibility: to act virtuously and make a difference whenever anti-Semitism and right wing extremism raise their head.

Thank you for giving me an opportunity to share these thoughts with you today.

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