Today (29 January) one week after the knife attack in Aschaffenburg, the Bundestag discussed a stricter migration policy. After the heated debate, a vote was held on Friedrich Merz's so-called five-point plan, among other things. The result: the Bundestag voted in favour of the demands for a drastic tightening of asylum policy. The FDP and AfD had previously signalled their support for the motion. The SPD, Greens and Left rejected it. Image: WDR Aktuell via YouTube
Commenting on today's situation in the German Bundestag - the hour of remembrance for the victims of the Holocaust and the subsequent debate on the possible joint vote by the CDU and AfD - Christoph Heubner, Executive Vice President of the International Auschwitz Committee, stated in Berlin:
“As they look at developments in Germany, Holocaust survivors are feeling unsettled and saddened, especially after today's debate in the German Bundestag. They are wondering why a party is moving to the centre of political decision-making in Germany, from whose ranks right-wing extremist, anti-democratic and anti-Semitic diatribes are increasingly gaining weight. And they are wondering why the leader of a major conservative party, which so far has respected the lessons of the Holocaust and the dignity and life's work of Holocaust survivors, now considers it acceptable to work with a party that wants to throw the history of the Holocaust on the scrapheap and exclude the memories and commitment of Holocaust survivors from social life in Germany.
For the survivors, this clearly marks the day of a fatal mistake: once before, people in Germany believed they could contain, tame and use right-wing extremists. The consequences are well known.”