Commemoration for the Warsaw Ghetto: Steinmeier asks for forgiveness

Tens of thousands of Jews died in the Warsaw ghetto from malnutrition, disease or during the uprising. Federal President Steinmeier has now thought of the victims with the heads of state of Poland and Israel – and asked for forgiveness.

On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, together with the heads of state of Poland and Israel, commemorated the victims of the German occupiers and the Nazi crimes in World War II. Steinmeier, Polish President Andrzej Duda and their Israeli counterpart Isaac Herzog attended a commemoration ceremony in front of the memorial to the heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto.

“I stand before you today and ask for your forgiveness for the crimes that Germans have committed here,” said Steinmeier in his speech. For the first time, a German head of state spoke with him in a commemorative speech on the anniversary. Since the then Federal Chancellor Willy Brandt fell on his knees in December 1970, the Ghetto Memorial has also been a formative place for German-Polish reconciliation. Before the commemoration, Steinmeier met with Holocaust survivors.

Steinmeier: Reconciliation is a gift

“Germans meticulously planned and carried out the Shoah’s crime against humanity. Germans persecuted, enslaved and murdered the Jews of Europe, the Jews of Warsaw, with unimaginable cruelty and inhumanity,” Steinmeier continued.

Many people in Poland and Israel would have given the Germans reconciliation despite the Shoah’s crime against humanity. “A gift that we could not and should not expect,” said the Federal President. “We must and we want to preserve the miracle of reconciliation and lead it into the future.”

At the same time, Steinmeier recalled the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. “Never again, which means that there must be no criminal war of aggression like Russia’s against Ukraine in Europe,” he said. And it also means that “we, the liberal democracies, are strong when we act together and united”. He reiterated that Germany stands firmly on Ukraine’s side. The country will receive humanitarian, political and military support with the other alliance partners.

Tens of thousands died in the Warsaw Ghetto

At times around 450,000 Jews were crammed together in a very small space under inhumane conditions in the Warsaw ghetto. Tens of thousands of people died from malnutrition, disease or executions. In the summer of 1942, more than 240,000 residents were deported from the ghetto and murdered. Around 50,000 people then lived in the so-called residual ghetto.

On April 19, 1943, hundreds of Jewish fighters rose up against the German occupiers, who crushed the uprising with great brutality and set the entire ghetto on fire. The fighting lasted until May 16 and ended with the destruction of Warsaw’s Great Synagogue. Thousands of people were killed in the fighting, most of the other ghetto residents were deported to death camps, and only a few survived the uprising.