Germans 'guilty' over Holocaust

2005-01-26 14:38

Berlin - One in five Germans feels personal guilt over the Holocaust, 60 years after the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp, according to an opinion poll released on Wednesday.

When asked: "Must we still feel guilty today for Auschwitz?" 20% of the 1 006 Germans questioned said "Yes", the Forsa Institute survey for the weekly magazine Stern found.

Seventy-four percent said "No", while six percent said they did not know.

Up to 1.5 million people were killed at Auschwitz, in then Nazi-occupied Poland from 1940 until its liberation by the Red Army on January 27 1945. At least six million Jews are thought to have perished in the Holocaust.

At an Auschwitz commemoration ceremony in Berlin on Tuesday, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder expressed his shame over those who were murdered.

"The vast majority of Germans alive today are not to blame for the Holocaust, but they do bear a special responsibility," he said.

The poll found that 47% of Germans thought they did bear a special responsibility toward the Jewish people, while 48% did not share that view.

- AFP