Commemoration for the Warsaw Ghetto: Steinmeier’s demonstrative humility

The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising began 80 years ago. Federal President Steinmeier commemorated the victims in the Polish capital and acknowledged Germany’s responsibility for the Nazi crimes.

Frank-Walter Steinmeier slowly goes to the lectern. Next to him the monument to the heroes of the ghetto: emaciated but combative faces; death before your eyes. The Auschwitz survivor Marian Turski spoke before Steinmeier, as did the Presidents of Poland and Israel. The Federal President knows the ground he’s on here and that among the speakers he represents the country of the perpetrators – as the first German head of state.

It is difficult to speak here, he says – and therefore lets someone else go first: “Farewell, friends, farewell, Jewish people. Never allow such a catastrophe again,” Steinmeier quotes the painter Gela Seksztajn, who works in Warsaw was imprisoned in the ghetto and murdered there.

The Federal President is demonstratively humble. Again and again he quotes testimonies of the Jews, diary entries from the hell of the ghetto:

Critical look back to Germany

“Never again,” says Steinmeier, should there be racism, unleashed nationalism and a brutal war of aggression. “Never again” is the central lesson of history. “Never again,” he says, in Polish, Hebrew and German. The readiness of the people in Poland and Israel for reconciliation after the Shoah is a gift that the Germans could not and should not have expected.

Steinmeier asks who in Germany today knows the names Auerbach, Edelmann, Anielewicz, the names of the people in the ghetto. Who actually knows about the crimes committed by the Germans in occupied Poland?

It is a critical look back at Germany – one that many people in Poland share. “That’s why it’s so important to me to be here with you and with you today,” the Federal President continued. “I’m here today to tell you: We Germans are aware of our responsibility and we know the task that the survivors and the dead have left us. And we accept it.”

Demonstrative solidarity with Poland

But Steinmeier’s state visit to Poland is not just about the past. Polish-German relations are tense, and today the Federal President is being presented with a demand for reparations of 1.3 trillion euros.

In his speech at the ghetto memorial he does not go into this, but demonstratively supports Poland when he also refers to the current Russian attack on Ukraine as “never again”. “We Germans have also learned the lessons of our history.” “Never again” means that there should be no “criminal war of aggression” like Russia’s against Ukraine in Europe. “‘Never again’ means: We stand firmly on the side of Ukraine – together with Poland and with our other allies.”

You could rely on us, that is the message from the Federal President. Andrzej Duda, Poland’s President, nods politely. Here, in his country, more and more people have doubts about that.