Es ist die erste Sitzung in diesem Jahr. Das Datum erlaubt es noch, Ihnen allen ein gutes neues Jahr zu wünschen.
Sehr geehrter Herr Professor Ladany, ich darf Sie im Namen des Niedersächsischen Landtages herzlich willkommen heißen.
Es ist uns eine große Ehre und Freude, dass Sie unserer Einladung gefolgt sind, hier im Plenum zu uns zu sprechen.
Herzlich möchte ich zudem die Gäste begrüßen, die in der Loge Platz genommen haben: Frau Katz-Harari aus Israel, die Herrn Professor Ladany begleitet. Begrüßen darf ich zudem den Rabbiner der Liberalen Jüdischen Gemeinde Hannover, Herrn Dr. Lengyel, und den Rabbiner des Jüdischen Bildungszentrums Hannover, Herrn Wolff, ebenso den Landesbeauftragten gegen Antisemitismus, Herrn Dr. Enste. Herr Dr. Wagner, der Geschäftsführer der Stiftung niedersächsische Gedenkstätten, wird gleich zu uns stoßen; er ist noch mit der Ausstellung beschäftigt, zu der ich gleich noch etwas sagen werde.
Meine Damen und Herren, am 27. Januar 1945 befreiten Soldaten der Roten Armee das deutsche Vernichtungslager Auschwitz-Birkenau. Im Jahr 2005 proklamierten die Vereinten Nationen diesen Tag zum Internationalen Tag des Gedenkens an die Opfer des Holocaust.
Auch wir wollen heute an die von Deutschen begangenen Verbrechen gegen die Menschlichkeit erinnern und der Opfer gedenken, der Millionen Menschen, die im Nationalsozialismus ausgegrenzt, entrechtet, gequält und ermordet wurden: der europäischen Juden, der Sinti und Roma, der slawischen Völker, der Zwangsarbeiterinnen und
Zwangsarbeiter, der Opfer staatlicher Euthanasie, der Homosexuellen und all der Menschen, die wegen ihrer politischen Überzeugung oder ihres Glaubens verfolgt wurden.
Wir wissen, auch zahlreiche Orte im heutigen Niedersachsen waren Orte des Verbrechens und unendlichen Leids. Auf dem Gebiet des heutigen Niedersachsens gab es 53 Konzentrationslager und etwa 3 000 weitere Lager, u. a. für Kriegsgefangene und Zwangsarbeiter. Die Verbrechen ereigneten sich in jeder Stadt, jedem kleinsten Ort, in der Nachbarschaft.
Ich bitte Sie nun, sich für eine Schweigeminute von Ihren Plätzen zu erheben und der Opfer zu gedenken.
Meine Damen und Herren, heute treibt uns Demokraten die Sorge um, dass Geschichtsrevisionisten den Holocaust relativieren, nach ihren Vorstellungen umdeuten und mehr und mehr Menschen ihnen folgen, Fakten aussortieren oder verändern, die nicht in ihr Bild passen, Täter und Opfer neu bewerten. Auch Antisemitismus tritt wieder zunehmend offen zutage. Angriffe auf Juden in Deutschland mehren sich. Der Anschlag auf die Synagoge in Halle am 9. Oktober 2019 hat uns allen vor Augen geführt, wie groß die Gefahr durch gewaltbereite Antisemiten und Rechtsextremisten in
Ausgrenzung, Hass, Antisemitismus und Rassismus dürfen nicht geduldet werden. Dies darf kein Lippenbekenntnis bleiben, sondern muss im Alltag gelebt werden - am Arbeitsplatz, in den Schulen und in der Freizeit. Ich möchte die Worte von Roman Kent, dem Auschwitz-Überlebenden und Präsidenten des Internationalen Auschwitz Komitees zitieren:
Die Zahl der Überlebenden des Holocaust ist mittlerweile sehr klein geworden. Viele sind so hochbetagt, dass sie nicht mehr die Kraft haben, über das Erlebte zu erzählen. Umso größer ist unsere Dankbarkeit, Herr Professor Ladany, dass Sie den Weg aus Israel nach Hannover auf sich genommen haben, um heute hier im Landtag zu sprechen.
1936 kam Shaul Ladany in Belgrad zur Welt. Mit acht Jahren wurde er mit seiner Familie aus Budapest in das KZ Bergen-Belsen deportiert und sechs Monate dort festgehalten. Im Dezember 1944 gehörte er zu einer kleinen Gruppe von jüdischen Häftlingen, die dank der Rettungsbemühungen des ungarischen Zionisten Rudolf Kasztner ausgelöst wurden und in die Schweiz ausreisen durften.
Die Familie wanderte 1948, noch vor der Staatsgründung Israels, nach Palästina aus. Sie, Herr Ladany, wurden ein bekannter Wissenschaftler und Sportler, nahmen als Geher an den Olympischen Spielen in München teil. Nochmals wurden Sie auf deutschem Boden als Jude angegriffen: beim Anschlag der palästinensischen Terrorgruppe „Schwarzer September“ auf die israelische Mannschaft am 5. September 1972. Sie überlebten.
Herr Professor Ladany wird in Englisch sprechen. Sie haben die Möglichkeit, über die Empfänger die simultan gedolmetschte Rede zu hören.
Honorary Landtagspräsidentin! Honorary Members of the Landtag! Thank you very much for inviting me and for being willing to listen to me.
I am an “Operations Research” researcher. Maybe you are not familiar with this term. It was started by the British at the beginning of World War II when they assembled scientists from different fields to help them to solve various problems. One of the first projects they faced was how to reduce the loss of their airplanes, which flew over Europe and were hit by ground fire. The scientists checked those airplanes that returned though they were hit by ground fire. They charted the places where the airplanes were hit - hundreds or thousands of airplanes. From those airplanes that were hit - but not at certain places - they came to the conclusion that these places that were not hit were the critical points that had to be strengthened. Airplanes hit at these places did not return.
What is the analogy to the Holocaust? - I represent the airplanes that were hit and returned. Those airplanes that were hit and never returned are the victims of the Holocaust.
Be assured, I am a civilian and represent only myself and no other body. But obviously - in your eyes - I represent 6 million dead persons and 12 million persons alive. Those victims - the airplanes that never returned - could have told you the awful, the really awful stories. I can tell you the story of a survivor, which is nothing somebody would like to encounter. But this is not a part of the worst stories that a person can imagine.
April 1941, when the Third Reich attacked Yugoslavia and the Luftwaffe started to bomb Belgrade. It bombed the strategic points, but some bombs also fell on other places.
My family lived in a two-story villa. In the basement we had a laundry room. The house was made of reinforced concrete. The enlarged family - the grandparents on my father’s side, some mother’s cousins and one of their husbands - entered the laundry room. The neighbors from the surrounding houses that considered our house stronger than theirs assembled in the adjacent basement next to the laundry room. A bomb fell diagonally into the second floor, first floor and the basement. I remember - I was aged five - the house shaking, and huge noise. My grandmother was falling over me, trying to protect me. The iron door of the laundry room was knocked out of its hinges and fell on my grandmother. But nothing seriously happened to us. The bomb that entered the adjacent basement killed several of the people there. We escaped.
We escaped. After a while my father who was a chemical engineer - a graduate from Karlsruhe in 1924 or 1925 - was on reserve duty as a Yugoslav officer on the Albanian front. As the government surrendered, and also the military gave up, it took him more than a week to get to Belgrade and to reach and find us.
As we reunited with my father, he and my grandfather had to make a choice. At that time in Belgrade posters were placed on the streets in German - in gothic letters - with two paragraphs - I have a copy of that poster -:
Second paragraph: Jews that won’t obey the orders will be shot. - Plainly, without any nice words: “will be shot”.
So, taking the risk of being shot was one option. The other option was trying to escape to the new areas that were occupied by Hungary just across the Danube river, an area that once belonged to Hungary - prior to World War I -, and from where my parents stem. The risk was, that if they crossed by barks to the Hungarian side, the Hungarian Gendarmerie, the border control, would see us, and when they discovered that we are Jews, they would shoot us, and if not, they would return us to the hands of the military authorities - Gestapo in Belgrade -, and it would be the same final solution to us.
My parents decided to take the second option: to escape. My grandfather, as we reached the other side of the Danube, told me to speak only Hungarian when asked. I spoke at that time - age five - three languages. I was asked to try not to speak at all. My grandfather went in front, and as the Gendarmerie approached him, he said: The retired Hungarian national railway station Manager
Ladany is returning to homeland with his family. - My grandfather had a Hungarian appearance with a Hungarian big moustache, we had a Hungarian Name, we spoke Hungarian - that made the trick. They did not ask us any question, they did not check us - we passed.
We got to the next city of Novi Sad where my mother was born. Her parents and sisters lived there. After a few days it was recommended to us to get further away from the new border. We got to the city of - today - Subotica - in Hungarian it is called Szabadka - where my father was born. There we stayed in an enclave of two buildings belonging to the family, but my father, who was born there and studied there, went out a few times. He was discovered and taken to a prison. My grandmother took the initiative and went to a classmate of my father, who was a high-ranking police officer. With his help they released him. This happened three times within two months. So the family decided just to leave the place without official permission. We escaped from there to Budapest, and had false papers. In the false papers the fact that we were Jews appeared, but the Yugoslav nationality disappeared from it. They made sure that nothing connected us to Yugoslavia, to Serbia.
As my father was a chemical engineer and also a patent attorney and spoke fluent Hungarian - that was his mother tongue -, he had no problem to get a proper job. So financially we had no problem, although we were refugees.
I remember: Not long after we arrived at Budapest - the end of January 1942; I was not yet six years old -, my mother started to cry. She cried, cried, and cried for days. After about a week, two children were brought to us - a girl about my age, maybe a few months younger than me, and a six month old baby. Later I found out what happened. A Hungarian general with his division on his own initiative entered the city of Novi Sad - in Hungarian Ujvidek - where my maternal grandparents and also two sisters of my mother together with their husbands and other relatives lived together. By the way - an unusual situation: two sisters married to two brothers. They lived in a house with three families - also the family of the sister of the brothers. That general entered the city with lists prepared of all the Jews. In the early morning he started to take out the Jews out of their houses and brought them to the strand. They made a hole into the Danube that was frozen - it was end of January. They started to shoot them one after the other. The parents - as I heard then - managed to hide the children prior to being taken. Also the whole family of my mother was taken there.
The knowledge of that massacre reached to ears of a noble man in Budapest - a member of the parliament, noble by moral standards and noble by title: Graf Bajcsy-Zsilinszky. He went immediately to the governor of Hungary, Horthy, and demanded the stopping of the killing. That order was given, and when it reached Novi Sad, about 1 000 of the Jews were murdered there - including two of the sisters of my mother, their husbands and many other family members. My maternal grandparents were saved.
The order reached them before they were executed. The grandparents have found the children, so they sent two of the children to us. They were, biologically, my cousins. One of them went after a short time to a cousin of my mother that was childless, and remained with them. They survived. She is a physician serving in Paris. She is a physician like her late father that was killed there. The other, the six month old baby, was adopted by my parents. They gave the order to everybody they knew not to speak about it, and not to tell her. She was grown up as my sister. Only when my father died in Israel, and she was - after military service - already
a student at the university, it became known to her, and she remained my sister. I speak with her daily.
By the way, later on she started to find data, how she was saved, and she found out that she was not hidden in the house when her parents were taken, but that her mother took her in her hands. While her mother was there, awaiting her death, she passed her back to the row, and the six month old baby was passed from person to person. The people that were killed passed her back and back, and finally, when the killing stopped after hours, she was in the hand of somebody, and since my grandparents were saved there also, she stayed alive.
The story is not very nice to be absorbed by somebody. In Hungary, the Hungarians, who were allies of the Third Reich, had to do compulsory work. There was a workforce for males. They were all sent to the Russian front in order to clear minefields - not with mine detectors, but by walking on mine fields. If somebody stepped on a mine, then he “cleared” the mine. And if he survived, then the place was also safe. Most of those who went there never returned. If they were not killed by an exploding mine, they would starve to death or die because of illnesses. They took my father to the assembly camps on a few occasions, but since he worked at the biggest Hungarian pharmaceutical concern, they demanded his release because he was needed for the Hungarian war efforts, and he was always released.
And then in 1944, when it was clear that the Third Reich is losing the war, on 19th of March 1944, when the Russians advanced fast in the northern east, and everybody was expecting that the British and the Americans should start the invasion from England, and the English were already in northern Italy, it was clear how the war will end.