Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer on Thursday apologized on behalf of the Republic to Israel’s Foreign Minister Yair Lapid for the crimes committed at the Nazis’ Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria.
Lapid, whose grandfather Bela Lampel perished in Mauthausen, attended the commemoration ceremony to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
“I apologize on behalf of the Republic of Austria for the crimes committed here. I apologize that your grandfather was murdered here,” Nehammer said during his speech.
Speaking at the ceremony, Lapid recounted the story of his grandfather, who was picked up by the SS from his home in March 1944 in presence of his wife and Lapid’s father, Tommy Lapid, and never returned.
According to the records at Mauthausen, Lampel died in April 1945, just a few weeks before Nazi Germany surrendered.
“That was the last significant thing the Nazis did — killing my grandfather,” Lapid stated. “But dying was not the last significant thing that he did. Because my grandfather did one other thing, even if he did it after his death: Grandpa Bela, a quiet man whose family nickname was ‘Bela the Wise,’ sent me here today to say on his behalf, that the Jews have not surrendered. They’ve established a strong, free, and proud Jewish state, and they sent his grandson, to represent them here today.”
“The Nazis thought they were the future, and that Jews would be something you only find in a museum. Instead, the Jewish state is the future, and Mauthausen is a museum,” he continued.
“Rest in peace, grandfather, you won.”
Lapid recited the mourner’s Kaddish and laid a wreath on behalf of the Israeli government. He also lit a candle in the memorial’s Room of Names for his grandfather and in memory of all those who perished at Mauthausen.
“We can’t undo these hideous crimes. But we can ensure that we will never forget and continue our fight against every form of antisemitism,” Nehammer commented. “Hatred has no place in Austria. It is up to all of us to ensure that the darkest chapter of our history is never repeated.”
“As the federal government, it is our goal to actively promote Jewish life in Austria. This includes our national strategy in the fight against antisemitism and the law to safeguard Austrian-Jewish cultural heritage,” he added.
The event came as Israeli officials, foreign leaders and Jewish communities marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day in ceremonies around the world.
In Germany, Israeli Knesset Speaker Mickey Levy gave a historic speech to the German parliament at the Reichstag building, where he tearfully read from the Mourner’s Kaddish from the prayer book of a Jewish boy used at his 1938 bar mitzvah.
Addressing Israel’s diplomatic corps in a virtual speech, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett called for combating “indifference with initiative, inaction with engagement, by combating injustice with truth.”
“It is our vow that the Jewish people will never again be powerless, never again be voiceless, and never again be homeless,” Bennett remarked.
(c) The Algemeiner Journal
{Matzav.com}
On behalf of all the jews who were murdered and tortured in the camps, I say that I do not accept Mr. Nehammer’s apology on behalf of the Republic of Austria and the Austrian murderers who murdered the jews. Apology rejected.
not one mention by the U.S. that today was Holocaust Memorial Day. So sad how history is being wiped out.
The Zionist foreign minister is very much not the one to whom anyone should apologize.
First of all, the Zionist State is Zionist, not Jewish, and represents only its citizens, not any Jews other than those Zionists.
But what really makes this a much greater farce is the existence, actions and inaction of Zionism and Zionists during WW II which, together, certainly contributed, if not much more, to the attempted genocide of Jews during the Holocaust. The Zionists did not hide this, not even after WW II. Zionism, in the Zionist faith, is above all else including Jewish lives. Etc.
“Rest in peace, grandfather, you won.” Huh? Seeing a grandson, a sheigetz, does not show he won.
Of all people to represnt the murdered, Lapid? He HATES the Torah just as much as the nazis did! He still doesn’t understand that they hated Bela because he had Torah – not because the color of his skin, or the language he spoke, etc. We accepted, practice, learn, and live the Torah. Day in and day out! That is what the goyim can’t have.
So what’s the difference between them and Tameh Lapid or his son Yair?
Civil marriage? Toeva? Goyim being registered as Jews? Intermarriage? Chilul Shabbos? Close Yeshivos due to lack of of funding? Of course ‘one cow being worth more than a thousand (frum) Jews’. That’s their mindset.
We always had haters – within and without – and we ALWAYS came out on top. But what is a Jew hater doing representing the Jewish nation? For shame!
The Zionist Lapid represents only the Zionist idol, not the Jewish people.