live from the german border start here in berlin watching. television of course you just heard the benefits quartet playing a piece by the czech composer sure hall and now we're about to hear from seoul freelander the renowned czech historian who's going to address the german bundestag as. the guest speaker on the day on the keynote speaker on the day of holocaust remembrance here percy the president's very very. up and piece leave it for friends family or family member down ladies and gentlemen. allow me for the first of all the story thank you for reading our honor of inviting me to come speak to you today. and the day in which we remember the victims of national socialism here in the bundestag. i

will be speaking german to love just me and i can only hope is that we will. forgive me for speaking a language that i spoke for many years as a child but have not spoken very much for years as an adult of course i would go. if you really acquired my german in school again but i rarely use it on the thirtieth of january one thousand nine hundred thirty nine yesterday to a day eighty years ago hitler told that ice time. and a few guns if the international finance jewry within europe and outside of it should manage to force the countries of the world into a world war then the result. it will not be. as ation of the world so.

and victory for the jews but it will be the and nial asian of the jewish race in europe i quote three years later in a europe that was that had been invaded by the germans the systematic murder of injuries big and nazi leader repeated his prophecy as he called it four times in almost the identical words aren't the jews once again and he said you still laugh about my prophecies i do not know if they are still laughing today or whether they have ceased to be able to laugh i can only assure you now that they will no longer laugh any more said hitler. and i will prove to be right with my prophecy said

hitler many ordinary germans already knew in one nine hundred forty two what hitler's prophecies were main through an article that was published on the twenty fifth of february of that year in a lower saxony daily. reported on one of hitler's speeches had a headline. the jew will be annihilated and the same assessment was is found in private diaries above and beyond the. goals hundreds and thousands of german soldiers who were stationed in eastern europe passed on information about what they saw and what they did. they told their friends and they told their families that's on the eighteenth of june nineteenth forty two. it's

a very. hard couple's reservist wrote from various wrote home with her and he said we were stationed in for a village where someone the day before had shot thirteen hundred jews. they were brought to q. and a bests outside of the village the men women and children hat to be stripped naked and was shot in the back of the neck weavers we reuse their clothes after disinfection i am convinced that if the war continues. the jews will be processed into sausage and fed to the russian p o w used for the jewish forced laborers and on the thirty first of august two. years officer can needless wrote in his diary. are

a conversations that we had to heard in a train our borders is this full of. dust and. it was a conversation he overheard from where he said that this couple were talking about how jews had been murdered and how there was a camp there and they promised to show the person they were talking to the camp it was a bash at scamped we drove past it for a long period we went by steve drove through forests when the woman said it's coming all we saw was a hedge for trees there was a cloying smell in the air marshals up there they stink said the woman oh nonsense that's the gas said it's the trained police officer they were about we'd gone about two hundred meters and then this cloying smell. turned into

a burnt smell and for crew that's from the crematorium the police officer said shortly after this. we passed this hedge schools and we saw as soon as that exists there are hundreds of examples of this kind and at the end of forty two at the very latest at the start of forty three millions of germans knew that jews were being systematically murdered in eastern europe. was the first of the three camps of acts on the rhine. which was the front line to murder. where the jews were murders in the german government in may forty two it started operations you know about four hundred thousand jews buyers were just. murdered.

by this machinery and saw. some two hundred thousand or were murdered in the same way interbreeding kyra the number of murdered jews increased to eight hundred thousand. nearly all of the jews from the warsaw ghetto were among them from june forty one there were einsatz called and other units who were murdering jews where they found them either in mass shootings or by. i was fix the a.t.m. and gas train coaches in a person. was then created as the annihilation camp after experiments with gassing using cyclon b. had been tested on russian prisoners for years or in this forgotten is

another fact namely that the jews who were for the embodiment of all evil with the preferred victims of the nazi regime but other groups were also mercilessly murdered those with disabilities sinti and roma and the soviet prisoners of war yours for most of the jews. for they say it was unimaginable what they were heading for even though all the signs were there are you walk your beard for three days if i see you are criminals rape sample. for a jew who worked a jewish woman who worked in a hospital and how she dared not early that's forty so seriously sick patients were picked up and taken fever supposedly to forced labor in germany to

what she said they would die on the way there even though it was absolutely clear for at the same time. supports your people as you found it very hard to imagine that they were being assertive take it up with animals killed and then worse and then better she was taken to auschwitz herself and she died in a very comparison. of us to nazis for. certain other bullshit if who couldn't imagine if it was a sixteen year old russian franca says. redbirds are very religious young boy from holland who managed to seek refuge in brussels on the twenty first of january one thousand nine hundred forty three he wrote down in history and if i recall it is as if we are in a big room where lots of people are happy and dancing. while

a very small group of people is sitting in the corner silently and every now and then they pull a few people out of this little group take them into a room next door and strangle them and the others continue to dance it doesn't matter to them. perhaps. they can just continue to have fun anyway he and his parents were arrested. and brought to auschwitz he died there in january or forty five in bed again best bet and best time before perhaps you will allow me to leave this background for a moment and to tell you a little bit about what happened to me and my family for not because we were a particularly special case or anything but just to explain what happened to

jews five of us british who believed that they could seek refuge in it's a new human rights in april and thirty nine after the german occupation of the. czech this was part of czechoslovakia it was possible for us to flee the city i was born in prague and to reach paris i was six years old you mars cargo you would like most of the jews of crocodiles my parents spoke german at home. and only occasionally spoke czech or marina specially since. the family of my mother came from the survey. the first song that i learned to play on the piano. was to come up odd units until june forty two we stayed in paris and then we fled again. my parents decided we should go to

pat and central france was an area that was not. supposedly well it was in france and we stayed there until summer forty two in july forty two or. four in occupied france the arrests of foreign jews began partners in accordance with an agreement between parker the s s and priestly to cut over in france and the. the prime minister as well as the head of the french police and it was scary this huge campaign was done by the french players. one month afterwards they are arrests began and are still going to push them before my parents. only rights to a way to escape was to go over the alps to switzerland and they felt that this

would be too difficult for me you so they did to me that was their attempt to hide me in their first attempt to reach to bring me to safety their first attempt failed miserably and that panic they sent me to flicker and orphanage somewhere and central france for you. but chose a jewish orphanage so it was a wonderful summer day when i arrived there on a eighth of august nine hundred forty two years of wood you can there were about one hundred children there for fish and it was athletic games and after that they sent him songs and we had dinner and then every month to bed and then the middle of the night. we were suddenly woken up the french police had arrived if our rules ostrich we were ordered to leave our

bedrooms to go in the sun dormitories to go into the halls all. the children who were ten years and older than that had to get dressed and get into the trucks i wasn't going to be ten for another three months so i stayed with a little gets the morning maybe after that i was returned to my parents it's now my parents had to urgently flee they were helped by christian friends. who finds a place for me in a catholic boarding school nearby. it was a seminary for a boy is for preparing boys to become catholic priests to see if they themselves. in the whole hospital was in most some medium sized your city where they were waiting to join their group and early on and try to cross the border into

switzerland soil to try it i ran away from the boarding school and found my parents in the hospital where they were and they had to bring me back. for us what were they thinking when they saw how their little boy there. but i didn't want to stay. in hiding but wanted to be with his parents. this was the last time i was to see them. right my parents. since it started in september of forty two crossed into switzerland at three in the morning as part of a group of fifteen jews and attempted to rights the group for.