Berlin (AFP)
Deported to the Nazi concentration camp at Buchenwald in Germany during his childhood, Naftali Fürst had to "pinch himself" to realize what was happening to him.
The 87-year-old Israeli was transported on Tuesday by a plane of the Luftwaffe, the German Air Force to come and inaugurate a photo exhibition on the survivors of the Holocaust in Germany, on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi extermination camp at Auschwitz.
"I don't know if I dream or if it's real ... because 75 years ago I was supposed to be in another world", said Fürst in a video shot on the plane and published on Twitter by the German Ministry of Defense.
"Being honored 75 years later is an incredible experience," he says.
It was on a specially chartered plane that he left Tel Aviv to attend the opening of the exhibition in Essen, also inaugurated by German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the Ruhr Museum in Essen, in the west of the country, which runs until April 26.
- 'Faces' -
For this trip, he was accompanied by his daughter and two of his grandchildren.
Fürst is one of the 75 Holocaust survivors photographed for this exhibition called "Survivors - Faces of a Life after the Holocaust", in French "Survivants - Les visages de la vie après le Holocaaus".
The German Foundation for Art and Culture in Bonn organized the event in partnership with the International Institute for the Memory of the Shoah Yad Vashem, in Jerusalem.
It is a "truly impressive work", reacted the German Chancellor.
Seventy-five large portraits of Holocaust survivors, along with their stories, are hung on the walls of the museum. Today, all of them live in Israel.
"Each portrait is a reminder for each of us to show more humanity, not to remain silent or to look away when someone's dignity is attacked," said the Chancellor.
Last summer, photographer Martin Schoeller met each of the survivors to create their portraits. For him, it is "the most moving project of my life".
Of German origin, Martin Schoeller, 51, moved to New York in the 1990s, where he became known for his many portraits. He has notably collaborated with several newspapers and magazines, including The New Yorker and National Geographic.
- 'The incomprehensible -
Among his models are among others Angela Merkel and the former President of the United States, Barack Obama, but also stars like the American pop singer Taylor Swift.
After Essen, the exhibition will begin a world tour that will take it from Maastricht in the Netherlands to Toronto in Canada.
The 75 portraits were also collected and published in a book, which the Steidl publishing house describes as "an attempt to preserve the incomprehensible for generations to come".
Other commemorations will be organized this week around the world for the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier is set to travel to the former concentration camp in Poland after his scheduled participation in the fifth World Holocaust Forum in Jerusalem on Thursday.
More than 40 heads of state are expected to attend this event, including the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin.
This anniversary comes at a delicate time for Germany with an upsurge in anti-Semitic acts, and a failed attempt against a synagogue last year. The Interior Ministry recorded 1,799 in 2018, the highest number in ten years.
In Essen, Angela Merkel recalled that the fight against anti-Semitism remained a priority for her government. "Anti-Semitism is not only an attack on a few citizens, but on the set of values that our society carries," she said.
© 2020 AFP