GERMANY: Israeli Security Minister Avi Dichter pays a visit to Berlin's Holocaust Memorial, and is reminded of his own family history

Record ID: 395519

  • Title: GERMANY: Israeli Security Minister Avi Dichter pays a visit to Berlin's Holocaust Memorial, and is reminded of his own family history
  • Date: 18th November 2008
  • Summary: (BN10) BERLIN, GERMANY (NOVEMBER 18, 2008) (REUTERS) POLICEMEN WALKING AROUND CONCRETE PILLARS OF BERLIN'S HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL DEDICATED TO EUROPEAN JEWS KILLED DURING NAZI REGIME SIGN READING "INFORMATION CENTRE"
  • Embargoed: 3rd December 2008 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Germany
  • Country: Germany
  • Topics: International Relations,History
  • Reuters ID: LVA39P4EPA99WWS7VGN8ATTZAATJ
  • Story Text: Israel's Minister for Public Security said during a visit to Berlin's Holocaust Memorial on Tuesday (November 18) that he was reminded of his own family history.
    Avi Dichter told Reuters Television after touring the exhibition that as the son of Holocaust survivors, "it has a very special meaning for me."

    "I grew up as a son to a father and a mother that lost all their family during the Holocaust in eastern Poland, now western Ukraine,"
    Dichter said, standing among the 2,711 concrete pillars which together form the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, as the site is officially called.
    Dichter said he was trying to convince his 85-year-old mother "today, this year, next year, to visit her hometown. And I hope I'll succeed to convince her, to go with her," Dichter said after touring the memorial with German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble.

    "To be with him (Schaeuble) here after we visited together Yad Vashem in Jerusalem a few months ago, I feel that it's not only a link between two friends, two ministers, I think it's something very symbolic between the two countries," Dichter said.
    The Holocaust Memorial was completed in December 2004 and opened to the public on May 12, 2005.
    It was designed by New York architect Peter Eisenman and it includes an underground "information centre" which displays photographs and documents on the Holocaust.
    Later on Tuesday, he was to sign an agreement with Schaeuble on "counter-terrorism and counter-crime" following "long discussions" between the German and Israeli ministries, Dichter said.
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