​(Communicated by the President’s Spokesperson)

President Reuven and First Lady Nechama Rivlin, together with Former President of Germany Joachim Gauck this evening (Monday, 24 April 2017) participated in the official closing ceremony of Israel’s Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day, which took place at the Ghetto Fighters' House Museum, and held in partnership with the Keren Kayemeth LeIsrael (Jewish National Fund). Before the ceremony, President Rivlin and Former President Gauck, who was attending at the invitation of President Rivlin to attend the national commemoration, were give a brief tour of the museum.
 
The ceremony was this year entitled ‘From Generation to Generation’ and focused on the importance of passing the torch of Holocaust remembrance to the next generation. President Rivlin began his address my speaking of the emergence of a new form of Holocaust denial. He said, “But rather the prevalent message arising from recent political statements is uniquely disturbing. And in every place that message is the same: we are not responsible for the Holocaust. We are not responsible for the extermination of the Jewish people which occurred within our borders.” The President went on to say, “So denied for example a French presidential candidate, France’s responsibility for the deportation of its Jewish citizens to the Nazi concentration and death camps. (A member of her party denied not only French involvement in the deportation of the Jews to destruction, but their very murder). In Poland, the debate surrounding the involvement of the local population in the persecution and murder of Jews has become a political issue of the first order. In the Ukraine, elected officials were enraged by my speech before the Ukrainian Parliament, when I recalled that many of those who collaborated with the Nazis were Ukrainian, and among them those who betrayed, and slaughtered Jews, and in many cases turned them over the Germans”.
 
“It is true, the responsibility is not equal, ,” he said, and added, “We do not demand from any nation apart from the German nation, the responsibility for the systematic planning and the implementation of the Final Solution. But we do call for moral internal reflection from all those who assisted carrying out of the systematic annihilation. The denial of responsibility of the crimes committed in the days of the Second World War is Holocaust denial of a new, more destructive and dangerous kind from that we have known till now.”
 
The President added, “This is not a denial of the very existence of the Holocaust, but a denial of the distinction between a victim and a criminal. This is a denial that seeks to annul the political and moral responsibility that must stand at the heart of memory of the Holocaust for generations to come. Victimization is the most comprehensive and effective note of exemption from responsibility.”
 
The President turned to Former President Gauck, and said, “Your Excellency, Mr. Joachim Gauck, as a human rights activist, and as a former President, you understand very well how dangerous is the new Holocaust denial to which I refer. By your presence here, as well as in the declarations and deeds of the German Government, you demonstrate the depth of your collective commitment to the memory and lessons of the Holocaust. This includes the importance of accountability, despite the weight of this responsibility, as well as the significance of responsibility as a tool of commitment, and the perseverance in dealing with the scourge of anti-Semitism that still bubbles on German soil.”
 
President Rivlin concluded by noting that as survivors of the Holocaust whose family members were murdered, and as a nation which carried in its collective conscious political and religious persecutions, and now as a sovereign state, there was a responsibility not to allow other nations to shirk the responsibility for the Holocaust. He stated, “It is our obligation to the blood of our brothers and sisters that cries out to us from the earth, this is our commitment to future generations. We must wage a war against the current and dangerous wave of Holocaust denial. We must resist the renunciation of national responsibility in the name of alleged victimhood. As a society and as a state, we must resist unholy alliances with extreme right-wing elements. Although it may seem safe to think that we share common interests with these parties, we must recall that there was and will be nothing in common with anti-Semites in any shape or form. My brothers and sisters, the survivors, Mr. President, ladies and gentlemen. The Mitzvah (religious commandment) of remembering the Holocaust requires us as a society and as a state, alongside other nations and countries to stand firm. Not to allow denial by blurring the distinction between a victim and a criminal, to insist on the need to take on historical responsibility with all its educational and national significance, in the face of the past and for the sake of the future.”
 
At the end of his remarks, President Rivlin invited his guest, Former President of Germany Joachim Gauck, to speak. Former President Gauck thanked the President for his invitation to attend the moving event and said, "Before you stands a man, a German man, who has been moved by what he has seen today". He continued, "Today, on Holocaust Remembrance Day, I pay my respects to those who were once ostracized, humiliated, persecuted and murdered by another Germany, because they were Jews. I will never think of those inhuman actions with anything but a pronounced sense of horror and profound sadness."
 
He said, "As President, I made a point of returning to the scenes of these horrific events and mass murders perpetrated by Germans," and explained, "I met with survivors and listened to them and cried with them. I will never forget their stories. But above all, I will never forget their willingness to reach out in friendship to the Germans of today."
 
The President stressed the importance of educating the next generation of Germans about the history of the Holocaust, and noted the significance of the strong bilateral ties between Israel and Germany today in many fields and said, "When I was young, I and millions of other Germans began to read about and realize what Germans before us had done. There was a time when I was ashamed to be German. I was unable to like my country. I hated it even. My generation viewed our parents with disgust. They disclaimed all culpability, they allegedly knew nothing. The majority of them still maintained this silence in the 1950s and ’60s and refused to accept responsibility for what had happened. I am sure, Reuven, that we are both filled with joy to see that our people are so close today, not just in diplomatic statements, but also in real everyday life. And as a German who was born in 1940, I want to repeat that I am also filled with gratitude so great that I have no words to express it."
 
He noted, "I may have been the last German President to have been born during the war and during the Shoah. For me, personally, that is a significant fact. But for the German people’s historical awareness and sense of responsibility, year of birth is irrelevant. I have said it many times before. Even future generations of Germans will not have an identity unblemished by Auschwitz. The special and lasting connection between our peoples and Germany’s particular solidarity with the democratic State of Israel will remain part of their identity."
 
He concluded, "Mr President, honoured friends, I will always remember that you invited me to join you in this act of shared commemoration and that you listened to me, on this day and in this place. Thank you."
 
In his address at the opening of the ceremony, Chairman of the Ghetto Fighters’ House Museum Board of Directors Dr. Arye Carmon said: “It is our duty and it is the obligation of our youth, the people of tomorrow, to bear the burden of the fight against oblivion and denial. Already today, our lives have been exposed to the threat of the future of the Holocaust in the human consciousness. The signs of oblivion and denial arise hand in hand with renewed injury to human dignity and freedom, with renewed manifestations of anti-Semitism and with evil raising its head in those countries whose cooperation with the Nazi oppressor helped exterminate one third of our people." Carmon stressed that the combined presence of Israel’s tenth president and the German Republic’s eleventh president, one of its most prominent leaders, is a sign for the launch of a combined struggle by those fighting for human dignity and freedom, a multi-generational struggle against oblivion and denial and the assimilation of the moral lessons of the Holocaust.