It is with sadness and pain that Auschwitz survivors are following the renewed escalations in hatred towards Jewish people in view of the demonstrations against Israel.

In Berlin Christoph Heubner, Executive Vice President of the International Auschwitz Committee said:

"Auschwitz survivors are reminding us that many of the Palestinian demonstrators who are burning Israeli flags, also in Berlin, have been saturated with extreme anti-Semitic attitudes since their childhood. The hatred towards Jews, that frequently erupts in the Arabic-speaking world, especially amongst young people, is amply well-known from Berlin schoolyards and demonstrations in the Federal Republic. The majority of these demonstrators will never accept the existence of Israel. They will always have a hostile view of Jews and see them as ‘the enemy’. This is the sad reality of hatred, which often pushes many survivors to the verge of despair. After their experiences of the concentration and extermination camps, many of them have for the first time felt at home and safe in their own state of Israel. They wanted, and want, to live peacefully together with Palestinian people in a democratic society, in peace and justice. For this reason they are especially grateful to all the representatives of Germany who point out the democratic character of Israeli society and remind people of the special relationship between Germany and Israel."