F.W. STEINMEIER: “This age of civil strife
Is no age for poetry
and such like:
when something is about to be written
it's as if it were being written
on the other side of death announcements
which is why my poems
are so bitter
(and when - in any case - were they not?)
and are - above all -
also so few
Dear Nikos Kotzias,
Dear organizers of this exhibition,
Dear guests,
Memory may be painful. We Germans know this. And it is something that you also feel in Greece, especially here in Thessaloniki.
I started with a poem by Nikos Engonopoulos, written in 1948.
It makes us feel how difficult it is to find words for what he went through and open the way to memory.
Today we are inaugurating an exhibition entitled: “Divided Memories”. This exhibition attempts to do what our poet is struggling to do: Reveal the past -- especially there where we have no memory or just a vague memory, or even contradictory memories.
Where our blind spots are, there it sheds light on the past.
The exhibition presents the “dark decade” in Greek history, 1940-1950, showing which historical images overlap and at times compete amongst themselves.
For us Germans, there is a memory that is fixed at the epicentre of our gaze, and that is the years of the occupation of Greece by the German Wehrmacht. We Germans are aware of our political and moral responsibility for the atrocities in Greece. The traces they left are deep.
And it is these traces that we can find again here at this museum. Especially here in this space, you see a series of photographs, black and white, against a black background. In the photographs we see children, and the more closely we look at them, the more difficult it is for us. We see children so weak that they cannot stand on their own feet; children dying of hunger. The photographs are from the great famine in Greece during the years of the occupation, especially in 1941 and 1942.
These photographs give a face to the terror of hunger, shining light on the fog of anonymity.
And this is feasible only because, at that time, some courageous Greeks, Voula Papaioannou first among them, documented the barbarity with their cameras, despite the strict prohibition from the German conquerors, and in spite of the shortage of supplies -- because the local Kodak factory had been destroyed. And that’s not all: Voula Papaioannou succeeded in getting photographs out of the country to sound the alarm to the whole world. After the war, she collected her photographs in an album of black cardboard, which she called the Black Album, and you see the photographs here today.
Giving a face to memory. This holds true for another chapter in history; a chapter whose magnitude in numbers is virtually inconceivable:
96%
50,000
These are the cold numbers that carry within them the hatred and rage with which the Nazi regime acted here in Thessaloniki.
Ninety-six percent of the Jewish population of Thessaloniki was deported to Auschwitz. 50,000 people. 50,000 individuals with histories, dreams, fears. And this exhibition wants to give those people their faces again. Here we find the memories of these people and we see where and how Jewish life was here in Thessaloniki.
Allow me to refer to one final number: 1,200. That is the number of the members of the Jewish community today. I am pleased that, following the opening of this exhibit, I can visit the Synagogue of Thessaloniki and bear witness to the fact that there is again a multifaceted Jewish life in this city.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
You may ask me: What do all of these memories have to do with today? Why do you see two Foreign Ministers here, a Greek and a German, at the opening of a history exhibition?
Don’t you have anything more urgent to do, more of the moment?
Yes, naturally there are more urgent matters, mainly for our European Union. Europe is under threat. From increasing centrifugal tendencies within it and outside it, from conflicts in its neighbouring countries. And as happens with a magnifying glass, these threats are gathering here in your country. Whether it is the financial crisis, the refugee crisis, the difficult relations with Turkey -- there is no European crisis of recent years that has not directly hit Greece. In my country, it seems to me sometimes, not everyone has understood this. But even more important: Throughout these years, the citizens of Greece have always supported Europe. There were some very irresponsible statements -- in my country as well -- in recent years regarding Greece’s exit from the common currency or the Schengen Area. In contrast, I would hope that other European partners would so unswervingly support the European endeavour as you here in Greece do.
We are living in times of crisis. And in times of crisis existential questions come to the surface; questions that in times of calm exist in a latent form: issues of identity, concerns, fears -- and also: the great shadows of the past.
How great these shadows are, including in Greek-German relations, is something that remained hidden from any one in recent years.
I remind you of the controversies in the financial crisis, when the German newspapers called the Greeks “lazy”, or when the Greek newspapers placed German politicians next to the Nazis.
There is a lot of explosive material in the past, and only conscious and serious consideration of the past can disarm it. Yes, this entails a great deal of trouble. I am pleased and grateful that the organizers of this exhibition went to this trouble: Greeks and Germans jointly designed and put together this exhibit.
Ms. Skarpia Hoipel, Mr. Saltiel, Mr. Panes: I believe that, through this work of memory, you are doing a great service to our relations. Because I am certain that Greeks and Germans meet in a different way when they do so in awareness of their common history. When they develop a sensory mechanism for the traumatic and blind spots of the past. And vice versa, they will also discover positive ties which are often not visible: For example, the centuries in which many Germans pined for the ancient civilization of your country - and for you sun.
Or I even think of the innumerable ties linking Greece with Germany during the difficult years of the dictatorship, especially here in northern Greece.
An example is here in the first row: My friend Nikos Kotzias studied and lived in Germany, in Giesen, where he was also at the university. Nikos, a political scientist asked me recently: Are we perhaps collaborating better in the sector of foreign policy because we were socialized in the same student hangouts in Giesen? Maybe, that could be an explanation. But it probably is about more than that...
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Europe is rich in history, but it is also equally rich in future. In these times of crisis, when the waves are swelling, it is my hope that Europe will indulge much more in the joint work of memory, as this exhibition does it. Because a Europe in which consciously dealing with memory is part of its political culture is better armed against the storms of our time.
My country, Germany, struggled for many years after the Second World War to achieve awareness of its history and its guilt.
And even now, many chapters remain in the dark, but this exhibition sheds more light on history.
And this is good. Because when we are prepared to take responsibility for our history, it increases our strength to take our future in our hands -- to see ourself not as an object of history, but as an active subject.
In Greece I see such an active subject, a partner that is prepared to take responsibility. A very specific and timely example is the resolution of the Cyprus issue. We will discuss this issue tomorrow in Athens, Nikos. There appears to be an opportunity for historical progress on this. Greece is playing a decisive role in this -- with insight into history, but with its gaze set firmly on the future. For Germany, Greece -- I want to say this clearly -- is a vital and indisputable partner, within Europe and for Europe.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I started my speech with the pain of memory. I want to finish it with hope. In Nikos Engonopoulos’s poem, we sensed how difficult each line must have been for him. Today we are grateful that he wrote them. He, through his poem, and all of the others whose works of art and traces of memory are gathered in this exhibition gave a present to us, their descendants. They give us the opportunity to associate with one another more consciously, with greater empathy, with more room for diversity and, mainly, with a clear eye for what unites us. I would be very pleased if this exhibition, which was created in the context of such wonderful collaboration between Greeks and Germans, were for all of us a push in this direction.
Thank you very much!
N. KOTZIAS: An exhibition on dark moments in history can be a ray of hope for the future.
The exhibition concerns dark issues, but the fact of this exhibition’s taking place is bright. The presence of my friend, the Foreign Minister of Germany and, earlier, my fellow student, is an example of how Greek-German relations can develop creatively with our gaze set on the future.
I want to thank all of those who contributed to the realization of this exhibition, which concerns the historic community of the Jews of Thessaloniki and the crimes perpetrated against them. This community, which was part of a pluralistic city rich in culture, commerce, education, knowledge, arts -- a city plying its way through the centuries.
I often say that history is not a prison, we must not let it become a prison. History must be a learning experience. From history we must learn how to move ahead to the future. History must not be an obstacle to our thinking beyond today.
History means respect for what happened, and not disrespect for the facts. History means our studying the factors that shaped it, and not indulging in fabrications, nationalism, chauvinism.
Thessaloniki was never just a multicultural city, but a city of light that kept and defended its memories of the Holocaust. People who knew and know Germany first hand lived and live in this city.
And when we Greeks speak of Germany, we must remember, with pride as well as respect, that the great founders of this literary state, the great poets of Germany, like Schiller and Goethe, laid the foundation of the German enlightenment, which Kant set down so well through philhellenism, through a search for German liberation via ancient Greek civilization.
As far as I know, there is no other nation or state that laid the foundations of its modern reality with a more philhellenist spirit than Germany.
And this is the great contradiction. This great nation of great minds, music, philosophy, political economy, this great nation founded on a philhellenist mix and that gave rebirth to the Hellenic spirit, making its wealth accessible to all of Europe, also came to dark days. These are the contradictions.
But if we only look at the dark side, we will lose sight of the depth linking Greece with Germany, linking the Greek spirit and the Greek enlightenment with the German spirit and the German enlightenment.
We Greeks have a good habit: We forgive, understand, see that dark moments, too, can happen in history. But we don’t forget. And we remember not just the dark moments, but mainly the bright ones. I think that in the coming history, people may remember the speech of Foreign Minister Steinmeier in Thessaloniki for his stance and the way he dealt with these memories.
It is a speech against nationalism and against “irredentism”, a speech that leads us to what we will do in Athens; that is, the signing of a joint action plan, building friendship between the two countries.
We are accountable before history and at the same time the way we deal with it implies responsibility. . Just as art implies responsibility, this exhibition too links art and history with responsibility.
And art says the unspeakable, what our soul cannot express in any other way. How can I express the dark image this photograph generates in us? How can I describe it? And how can I describe the light this exhibition represents amidst the darkness of these photographs?
Art speaks to us of the unspeakable. It speaks to us of death, but it also speaks to us of life. It speaks to us of what oppresses and saddens us, but it also speaks to us of hope. Art is the human being. It is the human being looking at what is outside of him, nature, where he himself is in self-reflection.
Art is sadness, but also joy. It is tears, but also a smile. And I think that when one looks at these photographs, one will feel bitterness and tears. But hearing the speech of the Foreign Minister of Germany and later emerging from everything you have seen and heard, you will have a smile, because even to the harshest moments of the history of humankind, there is a response: Peace -- understanding – capitalization on culture.
And if something makes us feel bitter, it is that this great Jewish community of Thessaloniki suffered such blows during the occupation. These great people often felt the hostility of anti-Semitism, which is the beginning of every kind of xenophobia, racism and bitter sentiment.
We believe in all communities, in all religions, in all cultural outlooks in this land. And we believe it because we are deeply European. We never forget that the first time the word “Europe” was heard was in the ancient Greek myth, even if it was in Zeus’s abduction of the most beautiful woman in the world.
We say we want a country open to everyone. We want all cultures open. We don’t want any European country to have occupation forces or some third party, outside of Europe, guaranteeing someone’s rights.
We believe deeply in the rule of law and we are a stable force that believes in the endeavour of the European Union, which is a system of law. We are the ones who hope, together with our Germans friends, that this endeavour will move ahead, and we will make every effort, even in the most difficult times, to keep open the path to a Europe of social justice, democratic, a factor for peace and security in the world and a strong power in the 21st century.
To do this, we need to have the good, creative, productive relationship between art and history, so that history can be our school for tomorrow, not a prison for the rest of our lives.
I thank everyone who contributed to this exhibition. I thank my friend, the distinguished Foreign Minister of Germany, who came here today to give us his light, his perception, and show how Greece and Germany, Greek and German politicians, intellectuals, artists, everyday working people can be friends and work together for a Europe with a democratic future.
Thank you very much.
December 7, 2016