The birds sang in the tall, leafy trees, and a warm spring sun shimmered on the lake, as Jewish leaders gathered from around the world Tuesday at the villa where the Final Solution was planned.
On the 45th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe, leaders of the World Jewish Congress gathered to read a declaration written by Elie Wiesel, the Nobel Prize-winning writer on the Holocaust. They stood in front of the elegant, neo-classical villa in the resort area of Wannsee, in the countryside west of Berlin, to remember the past while hoping for a better future.
"It is here," Wiesel wrote in his declaration, "that in a businesslike atmosphere of banality and efficiency, 12 German high officials, in the name of their criminal leadership and on behalf of their nation, condemned the entire Jewish people to death and oblivion: teachers and their pupils, brides and grooms, intellectuals and workers, rabbis and their disciples, young revolutionaries and old dreamers of Zion — all were doomed. Simply, solely as Jews."
On Jan. 20, 1942, high-ranking Nazi officials, including Reinhard Heydrich and Adolph Eichmann, assembled at the Wannsee villa to work out the overall plan for the Final Solution — the systematic destruction of every Jew in Europe.
The villa, which sits on a secluded plot of land beside the lake amid lovely homes set in dense woods, was used as a vacation home for children for over 30 years following the war. It is now being renovated, and will serve as a historical research institute dealing with the Nazi period.
Wiesel’s declaration, written especially for the occasion, was read in three languages. Raya Jaglom, president of the Women’s International Zionist Organization, read the text in Hebrew.
She was followed by Heather Harris of the United States, the newly elected president of the World Union of Jewish Students, who read it in English. Then Micha Guttmann, secretary-general of the West German Jewish community, read it in German.
The ceremony, led by WJC President Edgar Bronfman, was covered by about 100 radio, television and print journalists from Germany and around the world.
Heinz Galinski, president of West German Jewry, said at the ceremony that "it is shameful and tragic that this date, which marks the capitulation of the Third Reich, is hardly commemorated either here or in the rest of Europe, since everybody would have been enslaved" had Hitler succeeded in his designs.
"A message should go out from this place," Galinski continued, "that for the crimes planned here, no statue of limitations should be set, no one should ever be released from their responsibility. We appeal to the young people — ask questions! Even if they are awkward questions. Do this so that attempts to suppress the past can be stopped."
MEETING WITH EAST GERMAN LEADER
From Wannsee, the delegates to the three-day WJC conference crossed over through Checkpoint Charlie to East Berlin, where they were the guests of East German Prime Minister Lothar de Maiziere.
De Maiziere told the delegates that May 8 "is a day of liberation for us Germans, as well as for the rest of Europe. We have to live with our history and be constantly reminded and warned by it.
"On this date, the attempt ended to expunge the Jews from German history. But if we look at our history, we see that Germany without Jews never existed and Germany can exist only with its Jews," he said.
Addressing the recent decision of the democratically elected parliament of East Germany, which acknowledged for the first time that East Germany also shares responsibility for the Holocaust, de Maiziere said that "this is only a first step. We can’t make it easy for ourselves."
He said East Germany must teach its children the truth about what happened under Nazism, "and we must teach them how to solve their problems in a democratic way, and to show them the dangers of anti-Semitism.
"We have to break through this 40-year denial of responsibility in our country. One of the gloomy signs of this denial are indications of anti-Semitism among our youth," he said.
The Communist regime in East Germany had always claimed that West Germany was the true successor state to the Third Reich, and that East Germany, as an "anti-fascist" state, bore no responsibility for what happened under Hitler.
Before returning to West Berlin, the WJC leaders visited the Weissensee cemetery, one of the largest Jewish cemeteries in Eastern Europe, to lay a wreath in memory of the 6 million Jews murdered by Hitler.
During the conference, the WJC presented an award to Neal Sher, director of the Office of Special Investigation of the U.S. Justice Department, for his dedicated work in tracking down and prosecuting Nazi war criminals.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
