Israel's Peres arrives in Germany to remember Holocaust - Summary

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Jerusalem - Israeli President Shimon Peres arrived in Berlin on Monday for a three-day visit in which he is to commemorate the Holocaust and give a landmark address to the German Parliament. Peres, 86, is accompanied by a delegation of German-born Holocaust survivors marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27, the date on which in 1945 the Auschwitz death camp was liberated by Soviet soldiers.

In Berlin, Peres is also to meet a series of German officials, including President Horst Koehler and Chancellor Angela Merkel.

He will also hold a memorial ceremony at Platform 17 of the Grunewald Railway Station, where tens of thousands of Berlin Jews were deported to extermination camps during the Holocaust, the Nazi campaign of genocide during World War II.

The service will be attended by several high-ranking German officials and military figures.

In his address to the parliament, or Bundestag, Peres is to mourn the six million Jews murdered in the Holocaust, among them his grandparents and uncle who were burned alive in the synagogue in Vishneva, Belarus.

The Israeli president also planned to speak about the historical connection between Israel and the Holocaust, and the relationship between Israel and Germany following the war, his office said.

Peres, whose political career spans almost the entire history of the state of Israel, is to present his own vision and hope for the future of Israel, Germany and the Middle East.

His speech is to mark the first time an Israeli president has addressed the Bundestag in Berlin. Before German reunification in 1990, the post-war government of West Germany was located in Bonn.

Before the speech, Peres is to attend a reception hosted by Merkel at the chancellery and walk through the Brandenburg Gate.

The Israeli president is also to receive the Walther Rathenau Prize, awarded annually for outstanding lifetime achievement in foreign policy.

The award is named after a German-Jewish businessman who became Foreign Minister at the start of the Weimar Republic and was murdered in June 1922 by ultra-nationalist extremists.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/305669,israels-peres-arrives-in-germany-to-remember-holocaust--summary.html.