At the conclusion of Chancellor Kohl's visit, the Hebrew University held a
ceremony in which its new Institute for European Studies was named after
Chancellor Kohl. Following are remarks made by Prime Minister Rabin who
stressed the major role played by Jews who immigrated from Germany in the
development of Israel, and the contribution of modern Germany to Israel
and to the peace process. Text:
Chancellor of Germany, Dr. Helmut Kohl,
President of the University,
Rector,
Teachers,
Students,
Yesterday, 28 years ago, the paratroopers touched the stones of the
Western Wall - and the State of Israel and the Jewish people experienced a
time of extreme excitement: sites which for thousands of years had been
holy to Judaism returned to Jewish hands. We returned to the Old City, to
the alleyways of our heritage, we tore down walls which separated the
history of the Jewish people, we returned to the place on which we are
standing right now: Mount Scopus, the home of the Hebrew University. For
nineteen years dust sat on the students' benches in the University, the
buildings were still and no one filled the academic chairs. For nineteen
years this mountain was empty of teachers, empty of students, besieged
from every side - until it returned to be what it once was: the home of
higher Jewish and Israeli education. A dwelling for wisdom and
knowledge.
I remarked to the German Chancellor yesterday and the day before that his
visit with us opens a new page in the history of German-Israeli relations
- but we are not entitled to, nor want to, forget the horrible past.
Especially during these days, when the entire world is marking 50 years
since the end of the Second World War and the victory over the Nazis, our
wounds are reopened - wounds which never truly healed. There is nothing,
and never has been anything, more terrible than the Holocaust.
The Holocaust is a part of the private biography of each of us - even if
he himself did not experience this hell, and I can never stop thinking
about this great loss to the Jewish people. About the doctors who went up
in the smoke of the crematoria, about the rabbis who walked towards their
deaths, about the teachers who stood in front of firing squads, about the
children who were murdered. How many Einsteins were slaughtered? How many
Sigmund Freuds were killed? How many Jasha Heifetzs and Yehudi Menuhins
have we lost? How many from the glory of the Jewish people? These are
losses for us and for all mankind.
The memories are bitter - but we also knew days before the Holocaust. And
there were days of blossoming and culture, important days: the German
people and the Jewish community have a common history which goes back many
generations. One need only open up a history book in order to discover
names like Moshe Mendelssohn, Gustav Mahler, Karl Marx, Albert Einstein -
all of them Jews, all of them born in Germany, whose contribution enriched
humanity, not only Judaism.
For generations, German Jews made a contribution to the entire world. In
recent generations, their contribution to the Land of Israel and the
Jewish state was rare in its strength: almost every aspect of cultural
life science. and education in Israel in the pre-state era drew its
vitality from German sources.
An appreciable number of the founders of this university and its first
instructors were German. It is impossible to describe the pre-state Jewish
community without mentioning the German Jews: the doctors, industrialists,
judges, bankers, the moshavim and kibbutzim, and the Philharmonic
Orchestra.
Mr. Chancellor,
The university is the province of the young, for you and for us. This is
the home of the future generation - tomorrow's scientists, actors,
professors: the youth into whose hands both Germany's fate - in your case
- and Israel's fate - in ours - will be deposited for the coming years.
Mr. Chancellor,
I again ask to direct your attention also to the young people whose creed
is liable to bring disaster to the world. These are the young people who
constitute the fundamentalist-extremist threat - whose source is in Iran -
and who threaten the peace of the Middle East, and for that matter, the
peace of Europe and the free world.
There are young people in Europe, even in your country, who represent a
new wave of fascism and neo-Nazism, a difficult and cancerous disease that
was thought to have passed from the world.
I reiterate that your country, Mr. Chancellor, has a central role to play
in the attempt to block the spread of extremist fundamentalism, which
knows no mercy on its way towards its goal; your country also has a
central role to play in the effort to uproot fascism and neo-Nazism from
people's hearts.
From our home here in Israel, we are actively following your country's
reunification. The walls that you broke down, the barbed wire fences that
you tore down, the minefields that you dismantled, they are examples to us
of what can happen, and what needs to happen, in our region as well, here
in the Middle East.
Mr. Chancellor,
Your visit to our home comes at an historic time - peace is beckoning and
we are aware of the urgent necessity of its coming. Your country also has
a contribution to make in establishing and promoting peace, and therefore,
accept the gratitude of every Israeli child, the same children on whose
behalf we are making this peace.
I thank the Hebrew University of Jerusalem for bestowing this high honor
upon you today.
Thank you and my best wishes to you, Chancellor Kohl, on the occasion of
the dedication of the Institute in your name. May you return home in
peace.