Germany, 82 years on: ‘We are sorry’
Published in The Australian Jewish News
December 10, 2020
“Officially, on behalf of the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel, we are sorry that the 1938 consul general in Melbourne would not accept the letter of the Aborigines League nor forward it on to the political leadership here in Berlin as would have been the right and morally correct thing for a consular official to do.”
They were the words that took 82 years to receive.
On Sunday, Federal Government Commissioner for Jewish Life in Germany and the Fight against Antisemitism Dr Felix Klein issued an apology for the German consulate’s refusal to accept the petition of Yorta Yorta man William Cooper and the Australian Aborigines League in protest of Germany’s persecution of Jews in 1938.