Nobody in Europe will be abandoned. Nobody in Europe will be excluded. Europe only succeeds if we work together.
Angela MerkelRead
I can say that we are very clear in our mind about the responsibility of the national soldiers for the break with civilisation that was the Shoah. We are firmly convinced that this is something that will have to be handed over to generations to come... so we don't see any reason to change our view of history.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the enduring responsibility of acknowledging and teaching about the Holocaust across generations.
Angela Merkel reflects on the moral obligation to remember and convey the lessons of the Holocaust (Shoah) to future generations. She asserts the importance of maintaining a clear historical perspective on the actions of national soldiers during this tragic event, highlighting a commitment to truth and education about this dark chapter in history.
Themes
HolocaustResponsibilityHistoryEducationMemory
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech addressing a conference on human rights, one could cite this quote to emphasize the importance of historical awareness.
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All quotes →Let us answer the terrorists by living our values with courage.
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During the course of 1989, more and more East Germans lost their fears of the state's repression and chicanery and went out on the streets. There was no turning back then. It is thanks to their courage the Wall was opened.
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In 1917 European history, in the old sense, came to an end. World history began. It was the year of Lenin and Woodrow Wilson, both of whom repudiated the traditional standards of political behaviour. Both preached Utopia, Heaven on Earth. It was the moment of birth for our contemporary world.
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History was not a matter of missing minutes on the tape. I did not stand helpless before it. I hewed to the texture of collected knowledge, took faith from the solid and availing stuff of our experience. Even if we believe that history is a workwheel powered by human blood -- read the speeches of Mussolini -- at least we've known the thing together. A single narrative sweep, not ten thousand wisps of disinformation. (82)
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White America has seen to it that Black history has been suppressed in schools and in American history books. The bravery of hundreds of our ancestors who took part in slave rebellions has been lost in the mists of time, since plantation owners did their best to prevent any written accounts of uprisings.
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No book about Soviet sacrifice was as strong as the women's stories I heard as a child.
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My argument is that history is made by men and women, just as it can also be unmade and rewritten, always with various silence and elisions, always with shapes imposed and disfigurements tolerated.
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Let Indian history be set side by side with Europe history with what there is of the latter century by century and let us see whether India need blush at the comparison.
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