Frankfurt has a new memorial, on Thursday morning it was handed over to its destination with a ceremony. The Israeli artist Yael Bartana created the orphan carousel, which commemorates an extraordinary chapter in German history. At the end of 1938, after the devastating November pogroms, the rescue operation began, with which Jewish children were brought out of the country. Alone, left to their own devices, without their parents by their side, the children left the country that had become an inhuman, injustice state. Twenty thousand children were saved in this way, most of their relatives died in the German extermination camps.

Yael Bartana says that her monument, which is supposed to keep the memory of the Kindertransporte alive, also has a lot to do with our present.

She is right about that, even if such historical comparisons are never unproblematic.

Because even today many children and young people are on the run and are threatened.

And even today it is important to give them a hand, to see to it that they are saved.

At the moment it is mainly the Afghans who are seeking protection, people who hoped for a change in their country and have now suddenly been disappointed, people who are threatened with disaster because they have worked with organizations from the West.

Responsibility connected with history

These people must not be left in the lurch now, their fate should leave no one indifferent.

And Germany will probably not be able to avoid taking in many of them again.

The expected protests and the displeasure of right-wing populists about it can be endured.

Better still: you stand against it.

When it came to saving the Jewish children from the Nazis, there were many skeptics, there were tight contingents and strict restrictions.

How many more children could you have saved back then if the world had been jolted?

The mistake of being too hesitant about helping the persecuted should not be repeated.

That is our responsibility, which is so closely linked to the history of this country.

And the artist Yael Bartana reminds us of that with her carousel.