Israeli President Shimon Peres stood just a few hundred yards from spot where Nazi Leadership orchestrated the “Final Solution” to the “Jewish Question.” At his podium he wore a yarmulke and addressed the German Bundestag, or Parliament. He spoke on the 65th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp, a day now known as Holocaust Remembrance Day. In Hebrew, he recited the prayer for the dead. As Peres honored six million Jews who’s lives were simply discarded by Nazi Germany, every man woman and child in the chamber rose to his or her feet.
Peres told Germany’s leaders of the last time he saw his grandfather at a train station in Vishniev, Belarus, when he was just 11 years old. Then he told of how his Grandfather and family were herded in to their community Synagogue, the doors locked and the wooden building burned to the ground.
As Peres talked about the shared darkness in their past, it was clear Israel and Germany are striving toward a unity in their future. The Israeli president was preceded by House Speaker; Dr. Norbert Lammert. “We Germans bear responsibility for the state of Israel” He said, “Israel’s right to exist is non-negotiable.”
That last line is an indicator of the unified front the two nations are now presenting to Iran. A German contractor broke an agreement for construction on the port of Bandar Abbas in Iran, because that is the port from which the weapons smuggling ship ‘Francop’ originated. German giant Siemens cancelled a massive natural gas contract and announced and end to future business with the Iranian regime. Both of those deals ended at the urging of the Government.
Chancellor Angela Merkel called for a new round of sanctions against Iran. She also suggested that if Russia and China block new sanctions in the UN, friendly nations should assemble their own front against Iran’s nuclear ambition.
Yesterday evening I had a conversation with President Peres in his Hotel suite. He told me, as they forge a new future together, the German leaders “Are showing their friendship in words and in deeds as well.”