Bundestag President Arrives to Take Part in Holocaust Remembrance Day

Bas was greeted by Speaker Mickey Levy at a special welcoming ceremony at the Knesset.

“The lessons of the Holocaust require us to never tolerate the emergence and spread of antisemitism,” Bas said. “Germany’s responsibility has not come to an end. We stand with Israel.”

She had been invited by Levy, who tearfully addressed the Bundestag in Berlin in January on the day when the Holocaust is commemorated in Europe.

“Your participation in the Knesset’s ceremonies marking Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day is a significant and meaningful expression of the special connection between our countries, the historical responsibility Germany has taken for the crimes of the Holocaust, and Germany’s commitment to the security of the State of Israel,” Levy told Bas.

It will be the first time a senior German official participates in the Knesset’s Holocaust memorial events.

She met later with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who expressed Israel’s “great appreciation for the new government and for my friend, Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who has devoted much to remembering the Holocaust.”

On Wednesday morning, Levy and Bas toured the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum together.

On Thursday, she is scheduled to participate in the national Unto Every Person There is a Name ceremony, in which the names of Holocaust victims are read aloud at the Knesset on Holocaust Remembrance Day.

The theme of this year’s event is Transports to Extinction: The Deportation of the Jews during the Holocaust.

During the ceremony, which will be held in Chagall Hall for the 33rd time, six memorial candles will be lit by Holocaust survivors and members of Knesset in memory of the six million Jews killed in the Holocaust. The ceremony will be attended by the president, the prime minister, the speaker of the Knesset, the president of the Supreme Court, the leader of the opposition, and the chairman of the Yad Vashem directorate.

Before the ceremony, Bas will attend a special memorial service at the entrance to the Knesset, where she will light a personal memorial candle in memory of the victims.

She asked to light a candle bearing the name and story of Irma Nathan Hy”d, who lived in her hometown of Duisburg. Nathan was the head of the welfare committee of the Jewish community in Duisburg, until she was deported with her husband Hy”d in April 1942–exactly 80 years ago – to the Izbica transit camp, where they were murdered.