German foreign minister: Friendship with Israel 'seems like a miracle'
Germany's foreign minister warned Sunday against racism and xenophobia, at a ceremony marking 70 years since the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp Sachsenhausen near Berlin.
Frank-Walter Steinmeier joined Holocaust survivors and other guests at the site which was built while Hitler celebrated the 1936 Olympic Games, and where tens of thousands of Jews and other inmates died. Steinmeier said Germany had an enduring responsibility not to forget its horrific past, which meant it must "stand against injustice, against any form of xenophobia and discrimination". Steinmeier said that, in view of such horrors, it "seems like a miracle" that Germany and Israel now have a "deep friendship", marked by 50 years of diplomatic ties and a renewed "flowering of Jewish life" in Germany.
