Merkel calls fight against anti-Semitism one of her key priorities

Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel has said that the fight against anti-Semitism as well as remembering the Holocaust are permanent duties for German society as a whole. "Fighting anti-Semitism at its root is a challenge for the whole of society, even if the vast majority of people do not think in an anti-Semitic way," she said in a full-page interview with the leading newspaper ‘Süddeutsche Zeitung’. Merkel vowed that she would "always" fight against anti-Semitism even if that led to "insulting letters about being a 'puppet of the Jewish conspiracy' and worse".  

She encouraged Germans to talk unflinchingly about World War II and the Holocaust: "It is essential for the understanding of our identity and of our future to talk about Nazism and the extermination of the Jews," Merkel said.

Merkel also spoke about how Israel impressed her when she first visited the country as a government minister in 1991.


Read the full ‘Süddeutsche Zeitung’ interview with Chancellor Merkel (in German) here.