The commemoration for the victims of National Socialism in the German Bundestag on January 27 was moving in many ways. But it sounded particularly shocking when Inge Auerbacher called out from the podium in her speech: “Dear Ruth, I’m here in Berlin to visit you!” The woman, whose difficulty walking shows her old age, put herself back into hers Childhood “as a Jewish girl” in a small Swabian town. She was seven years old when she was deported with her parents to the Theresienstadt concentration camp in 1942. In her speech she recalled her friend Ruth, whom she met in the camp. They were like sisters, and they promised each other that they would visit each other later – in Berlin and in Jebenhausen. But: “Ruth and her parents were murdered in a gas chamber in Auschwitz. She didn’t even live to see her 10th birthday.” The immediacy of Inge Auerbacher’s speech, the memory of the 87-year-old survivors of the Holocaust caused this strong impression. But how can you hold on to it?
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