Auschwitz survivor blasts Germany's Merz over far-right cooperation
Merz, who is widely viewed as the frontrunner to replace current Chancellor Olaf Scholz after upcoming elections, broke taboos on Wednesday by relying on votes from the AfD to pass a motion calling for a crackdown on migration in the lower house of Germany's parliament.
Another vote on a CDU-backed package of migration policies is expected in parliament on Friday.
"Don't do it, Mr Merz," reads the letter from Umlauf, which was published by the Süddeutsche newspaper.
She wrote that she hoped not to witness the rise of far-right parties in her lifetime - but there is now a shift to the right throughout Europe, and hatred and agitation are becoming acceptable again.
"Hand on heart: it scares me to death," wrote the 82-year-old Umlauf. "We have all seen where this path can lead."
Umlauf was taken to the Auschwitz extermination camp when she was just two years old and, in her own words, would have been murdered if her train had arrived just three days earlier.
"Don't underestimate the right-wing extremists. Turn back on the path you took on Wednesday. Approach the other democratic parties, find compromises," she appealed to Merz.
The vote on Wednesday broke taboos, "but on Friday, for the first time in post-war history, a law could be passed in the Bundestag together with right-wing extremists," warned Umlauf.
What happens in the Bundestag this week will go down in the history books, wrote Umlauf, "because this is exactly how it starts, this is how we normalize the enemies of democracy."
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Boston Globe
3 hours ago
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'Perhaps human rights groups based in Israel ... coming to this conclusion is a way to confront that accusation and get people to acknowledge the reality,' he said. Advertisement Israel asserts that it is fighting an existential war and abides by international law. It has rejected genocide allegations as antisemitic. It is challenging such allegations at the International Court of Justice, and it has rejected the International Criminal Court's allegations that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant committed war crimes in Gaza. Both face international arrest warrants. Israel's government on Monday didn't immediately comment on the reports by B'Tselem and PHRI. Israeli officials largely blame civilian deaths in Gaza on Hamas, saying it uses civilians as shields by embedding militants in residential areas. The reports echo international claims The rights groups, in separate reports released jointly, said Israel's policies in Gaza, statements by senior officials about its goals there and the systematic dismantling of the territory's health system contributed to their conclusion of genocide. Their claims echoed those of previous reports from international rights groups like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Like other rights groups, B'Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel have not been allowed into Gaza during the war. Their reports are based on testimonies, documents, eyewitnesses and consultations with legal experts. Hamas' attack on Israel that started the war sparked a shift in the country's policy toward Palestinians in Gaza from 'repression and control to destruction and annihilation,' B'Tselem said. The group has long been outspoken about Israel's treatment of Palestinians. It halted cooperation with the military nearly a decade ago, saying the army's investigations into wrongdoing weren't serious, and it has accused Israel of being an apartheid state. Advertisement The PHRI report was a detailed, legal-medical analysis focusing on what it called the step-by-step dismantling of Gaza's health and life-sustaining systems including electricity, clean water and access to food. Its report says Israel has committed three of the acts of genocide defined by international law, including 'deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.' The Israeli rights groups said repeated statements by Israeli officials and the military endorsing the total destruction, starvation and permanent displacement of Palestinians in Gaza, combined with policies on the ground, have demonstrated that Israel is intentionally trying to destroy Palestinian society. Gaza's health ministry said on Monday that 147 people, mostly children, have died from malnutrition-related causes. The ministry operates under the Hamas government and is seen by the U.N. as the most reliable source of data on casualties. A 'painful' conclusion The term 'genocide' strikes a chord in Israel, where Israelis grow up learning about the Holocaust and hearing survivors' harrowing stories, while promising it would never happen again. The 1948 Convention of the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was drawn up in the aftermath of World War II and the murder by Nazi Germany of 6 million Jews. It defines genocide as acts 'committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.' 'As the grandson of a Holocaust survivor, it's very painful for me to be reaching this conclusion,' said Shalev from PHRI. But after growing up in a society where the Holocaust was so important, it demands some kind of responsibility, he said. Until now, Israeli criticism of the war in Gaza has been focused on Netanyahu and whether his wartime decision-making has been politically motivated and delayed the return of hostages — 50 of them still in Gaza. Advertisement Broader scrutiny of Israel's conduct in Gaza has been limited for multiple reasons. Despite the vast destruction and death in the territory and Israel's growing international isolation, most Israelis have believed for much of the war in its righteousness. And with most Jewish Israelis serving in the army, it's difficult for most people to fathom that their relatives in uniform could be carrying out genocide. Some soldiers, however, have refused to fight in the war. Jeffrey Herf, a historian who has published much on antisemitism, said the allegation of genocide doesn't take into account that there is a war between two parties. He said it ignores Hamas as a military force and Israel's right to defend itself. Israelis' focus is on the hostages, not Palestinians After groups like B'Tselem in recent years accused Israel of apartheid, more mainstream voices in Israel also picked up the claim, although in less sweeping ways. Israeli historian Tom Segev said he's not sure the new reports and their allegations will have an impact on the public. 'The major thing for Israelis is a question of the hostages, not necessarily the fate of the population in Gaza,' he said. But he said what's happening in Gaza is undermining the ideological and moral justification for the existence of Israel. The rights groups said the international community hasn't done enough to protect Palestinians and are calling on the world, including Israelis who have stayed silent, to speak up. 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