Esslingen 2005
“Of course we all had hatred when we found out what had happened and also after the war. I would say because I became aware of my hatred when we first came to Germany in 1952. When you really get to know people, somehow the temptation to have general hatred of everyone melts away.
We were also lucky - especially when we came to Germany for 15 months in 1961 - we met - I think it was a matter of luck - a lot of people we were convinced were not Nazis. People who were once in a concentration camp, that was the case with two women in Göttingen, too with the parents of our children’s friends. I think it’s the personal contacts that actually make it impossible to hate.
We have sometimes met people who were full of racist ideas. Who were not even aware that these are not general insights, but that they were taught that way. We happened to be sitting at a table with a man in a garden restaurant. He started to say that his wife belongs to the Phalian race and he to the Nordic race, and afterwards we easily recognized that I was wondering which one I actually belong to.
Yes, there are a few individual examples. And I believe that the study of the Holocaust has become more and more intense. You don’t hear anymore - just as you kept hearing twenty years ago: I’ve had enough of it now! It was talked about every year in school and now I don’t want to hear about it anymore. Maybe it still exists today. But I haven’t heard it in a very long time. I think you can see that it is necessary. Unfortunately, it does not prevent a Holocaust in other countries.”