Germany’s president said on Monday that his country still bears the guilt for the systematic murder of Jews by the Nazi regime.

- “We Germans still bear a share of the guilt that perpetrators, accomplices and supporters of the systematic murder of Europe’s Jews heaped upon themselves - Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in a speech marking the 80th anniversary of Nazi deportations of Jews.


The president attended a commemorative event at Berlin's Grunewald train station, where the systematic deportation of the Jewish population started in 1941.

- To this day we feel ashamed that fellow citizens were taken from the heart of society, harassed, deprived of their rights, expropriated – and finally dispatched on a journey to their death - he told the participants.


Steinmeier said the crime took place before the eyes of everybody, the exclusion and the picking up took place in the course of everyday German life.

- That is the dreadful truth even if the actual murders and eliminations took place in the conquered and occupied territories in the east - he said.


About six million Jews are believed to have died during the genocide carried out by Nazi Germany.


Steinmeier expressed regret that in today’s Germany many Jews still face anti-Semitism, and he called for a stronger stance against anti-Semitic hate crimes.

- “So, on a day like today and in a place like this, we also say: never again must anti-Semitism be allowed to have a place in our society - he said.

- Never again must anti-Semitic attitudes and actions be allowed to go unfought or unchallenged.-