Israeli president delivers wide-ranging speech to German parliament

The Israeli president addressed the German parliament on Tuesday on atrocities committed during the Third Reich, while praising the close and friendly relations that have emerged between the two countries since the end of the Holocaust.

During World War II, 6 million European Jews were killed by the German Nazis and their followers.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog told the Bundestag: “Never in human history has there been a movement to exterminate the Jews like the Nazis and their associates.”

“Never in history has a country been held accountable for the loss of all humanity, the annihilation of all kindness, and the annihilation of entire peoples in such a horribly cruel way around the world as Nazi Germany.”

Mr. Herzog also spoke about his father, former Israeli President Chaim Herzog, one of the liberators of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in northern Germany in April 1945. One, he was an officer in the British Army at the time.

“I will never forget how he described to me the horrors he witnessed. The stench. Human bones in striped pajamas, piles of corpses, destruction, hell on earth,” he said.

After the speech, Mr. Herzog and German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, accompanied by his wife, went to Berlin’s Memorial to the Murdered Jews – 2,700 blocks of grey concrete near the city’s landmark Brandenburg Gate board, where they laid two wreaths for the victims of the carnage.

On Tuesday, the presidents will tour the site of the former concentration camp. Afterwards, they will meet with survivors and German high school students.

The Israeli president arrived in Germany earlier this week for a state visit that also included a visit to Munich on Monday, where he participated in a ceremony marking the 50th anniversary of the killing of 11 Israeli athletes by Palestinian militants at the 1972 Olympics.

Looking ahead, Mr Herzog praised the close relationship between the two countries and their shared commitment to fighting anti-Semitism.

“The partnership between Israel and Germany has become world-renowned, and we must continue to deepen and nurture it for the benefit of the future of our country and humanity as a whole,” he said in parliament.