1129th Meeting of the OSCE Permanent Council
Statement by Ambassador Eberhard Pohl
Permanent Representative of Germany to the OSCE
In response to the Chair of the International Holocaust Remembrance
Alliance, Ambassador Mihnea Constantinescu
Vienna, 26 January 2017
Mr. Chairperson,
Following on from the statement by Malta on behalf of the European Union, I should like to
make a few comments on this topic, which is of such importance for Germany, from a
national perspective.
First of all, I should like to warmly welcome the Chairman of the International Holocaust
Remembrance Alliance, Ambassador Constantinescu, to the Permanent Council and thank
him for his important statement.
On 27 January, we commemorate the liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp by Red
Army soldiers 72 years ago. What took place in Auschwitz was a fundamental attack on the
very heart of what makes us human beings, namely, human dignity. Auschwitz is the
manifestation of the terrible plan to extinguish Jewish life from the whole of Europe. Since
then, the name Auschwitz has been a synonym for the entire National Socialist persecution
and extermination machinery. For that reason, the anniversary of the liberation of this
concentration camp is a day of remembrance in many OSCE participating States, including
Germany, of all victims of the criminal ideology of National Socialism, and all people who
were deprived of their material, spiritual and physical existence and robbed of their dignity.
One of the most important lessons to be learned from confronting the National Socialist past
is: “Never again!” For Germany, this message is at the root of our commitment to a unified
Europe and of our awareness of the immeasurably great significance of freedom and the rule
of law, plurality and tolerance. But however precious these values are, they are fragile at the
same time. They call for our constant attention and commitment. We must therefore stand up
to anti-Semitism and every other form of misanthropy from the outset, through police and
judicial prosecution where it has led to criminal activities and through prevention and
outreach with political and social programmes.
With this in mind, Germany made the promotion of tolerance, diversity and nondiscrimination, and also in particular combating anti-Semitism a priority of its OSCE
Chairmanship in 2016 and contributed 5 million euros to the Words into Action project by the
Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) mentioned earlier. During its
OSCE Chairmanship, Germany also advocated the adoption by the Ministerial Council in
Hamburg of a legally non-binding working definition of anti-Semitism. I should like to take
this opportunity to thank all participating States who supported this proposal. Although it was
not adopted in Hamburg, there was great agreement among participating States on the utility
of such a definition in the prevention and combating of anti-Semitism, above all in the spheres
of education and criminal prosecution.
Together with the ODIHR, the German OSCE Chairmanship organized a number of events in
2016 for combating the multifaceted manifestations of intolerance and discrimination.
Following on from this work, we presented a draft decision on the prevention and combating
of hate crimes for the Hamburg Ministerial Council, whose value, amongst other things, for
improving the statistical registration of hate crimes and the support for victims of such crimes
was acknowledged by the participating States. We are pleased to note that the Austrian
Chairmanship has announced its intention to build on this work and to retain the issue of hate
crimes on the OSCE agenda.
In conclusion, I should like to quote Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel’s words spoken on the
occasion of the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp:
“Crimes against humanity are not time-barred. [...] We cannot undo what happened, but only
if we are aware of our everlasting responsibility can we shape the future well.”
Thank you for your attention.
Translation by OSCE Language Services