The German government’s anti-Semitism commissioner has warned that discrimination against Jewish people is “no longer a marginal phenomenon.”
Speaking ahead of the German parliament’s event to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day, Klein said remembrance is an “expression of respect for the victims and of responsibility” towards Germany’s history.
“We commemorate the millions of people who were disenfranchised, persecuted and murdered,” Klein told the Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland media network.
Attacks on the culture of remembrance are a clear warning signal, Klein said.
“It is precisely our engagement with history that obliges us to be vigilant today and to actively and resolutely oppose anti-Semitism in all its forms,” he argued.
“The anti-Semitism we are seeing again in our country is no longer a marginal phenomenon,” Klein added. “It is certainly not a problem of a minority, but rather one that threatens the very foundations of our society.”
Confronting anti-Semitism is not the task of individuals, but the responsibility of all, the commissioner said.
The Bundestag, Germany’s lower house of parliament, is set to hold a memorial service on Wednesday to commemorate the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp on January 27, 1945.
Around 6 million Jewish people were killed by Nazi Germany in the Holocaust.