Köhler: Holocaust Part of German Identity

In a speech at a special session of the Israeli parliament on Wednesday, German President Horst Köhler said responsibility for the Nazi Holocaust was an integral part of his country's national identity.

"I want to underline that the responsibility for the Shoah forms part of the German identity," Köhler told the Knesset in his native tongue after a brief preamble in Hebrew. "That Israel can live within internationally recognized borders, free from fear and terror, is an incontestable maxim of German politics."

"My country has always demonstrated this by its actions. Germany stands unswervingly side by side with Israel and its people," he said.

Lessons learnt from survivors must endure

In a speech delivered just days after the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp in Poland, Köhler stressed that Germany would never forget the lessons of the past. "What will happen when there are no survivors left? They must remain part of our present. Their recollections must not be lost," he said.

"The faces of the victims must not be forgotten. We must ensure that the teachings of a generation will be passed on to the next generation. And we must all grasp the fact that the victims of the Shoah have given us a duty: to never allow genocide to happen again. Will we do justice to this duty?"

Köhler vows to fight anti-Semitism

The German president also stressed that his country would be unstinting in its fight against anti-Semitism and any effort to downplay the horrors of the Holocaust in which at least six million Jews were killed.

"Every open society also has enemies. Xenophobia and anti-Semitism have not disappeared from Germany," he said referring to a recent event in the state parliament of Saxony where representatives from the right-wing NPD party walked out during a moment of silence in honor of the victims of the Holocaust. The nationalist party had created a sensation by calling for replacing the tribute to the Jewish victims with one honoring those Germans who died during the Allied air raid on Dresden.

"Comparisons which try to play down the Shoah are scandalous and we must oppose them. We must seek to oppose right-wing extremists and anti-Semites through political means and we must do so aggressively."

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon earlier told parliament that while he was delighted to play host to the German president, the grief of the Holocaust would "endure forever".