Principles are good. What is decisive, however, is which actions follow from them. The 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising is a bitter test of the gap between commitment and action.
“Never again!” swear the heads of state of Israel, Poland and Germany as a lesson from the Holocaust when commemorating the women and men who did not allow themselves to be deported to the slaughterhouse like sheep. Despite the lack of arms and ammunition, they resisted for four weeks.
“Never again!” demands the European Parliament. In both Warsaw and Strasbourg, the two words sound like sacred oaths.
For the victims, the uprising is a role model
But what do they mean in practice? The descendants of the victims and the perpetrators profess the same principle, but mean completely different things.
For Jews, the lesson of the Holocaust is: never be defenseless again! The ghetto uprising is a model, a symbol and a beacon. Other victims of the Nazis draw the same conclusions. Poles, Balts, Ukrainians want to be able to defend themselves.
For post-war Germans, “Never again!” meant for a long time: never again take on such guilt, never be an aggressor again. Some meant or still mean today, despite the Ukraine war, pacism to the point of rejecting everything military in principle.
What is the lesson: upgrade or downgrade?
To put it bluntly: the descendants of the victims tend to rearm, the descendants of the perpetrators still too often to disarm. The opposing interpretations are the sounding board for domestic political disputes and foreign policy differences of opinion to the present day.
Do Germans underestimate the importance of a strong army for deterrence? Are soldiers murderers or defenders of peace?
Did Germany, purified by the world war, unintentionally encouraged Vladimir Putin to attack Ukraine because it met him with trusting spirit and a naïve belief in the peacemaking effect of trade, including gas?
And has Israel’s understanding of “never again!” contributed to the only democracy in the Middle East dealing questionably with its Arab neighbors and becoming an occupying power itself?
This open debate about what follows from “Never again!” and where it can lead to new injustice was missing on the day of remembrance. In his speech, Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier left it at universal principles: Never again aggressive war! Democracies must be resilient.
Germany does not live up to these claims. The police and judiciary are not taking decisive action against Jew hatred. People who openly wear a kipa or the Star of David must fear attacks.
Has Germany done everything in its power to prevent the “barbaric war of aggression” that “must never happen again”? Is it doing everything it can today to make the aggressor lose and the victim stand their ground?
The Polish poet Stanislaw Jerzy Lec clothed this discrepancy between principle and action in the aphorism: “Liberty, equality, fraternity!” But how do we get to the verbs?
This question also remains for the confession “Never again!”
