Holocaust survivor George Shefi received the Federal Order of Merit from German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier last Friday.
Presented by German Ambassador to Israel Steffen Seibert, the reception took place at the Ambassador’s residence in Herzliya ahead of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which will mark 80 years since the liberation of Auschwitz.
Born in Berlin in 1931, George (Spiegelglas) Shefi was raised by his mother for seven years until the “Kristallnacht” pogrom, where, in an attempt to save his life, she sent him on the Kindertransport out of Nazi Germany just before World War II.
His mother was deported to Auschwitz in 1943, where she was murdered.
Shefi made aliyah in 1949, enlisted in the IDF, and started a family.
Shefi attended the event with four generations of his family, as well as the Deputy CEO of the International March of the Living organization, Revital Yakin Krakovsky.
“Germany wants to thank you for choosing, as a witness to history, despite the trauma you experienced as a child, to dedicate your life to telling your story in schools, sports clubs, and parliaments to create reconciliation and understanding for a better world,” Ambassador Seibert said. “Anyone who has heard George will be able to stand up to Holocaust deniers.”
Seibert added that “the danger has not passed, and we must act decisively against growing antisemitism.”
In his acceptance speech, Shefi thanked his mother, who was murdered in Auschwitz, for saving his life.
‘Such a thing will not happen again’
“Holocaust survivors must tell their story because we are the last generation that can testify to things firsthand,” Shefi said.
“During my life, I have done this with thousands of German students to whom I said that they are not to blame for what happened to us, but they are responsible for it never happening again. This award demonstrates the Germans’ understanding of what happened and their commitment that such a thing will not happen again.“
Krakovsky explained that the March of the Living strives to teach younger generations about the Holocaust and “pass the torch of memory and responsibility from the survivors’ generation to the next generation.”
“George is responsible for creating thousands of new young witnesses to his story who take responsibility for Holocaust memory and the need to fight antisemitism,” she said.
Shefi will march in this year’s March of the Living at Auschwitz-Birkenau, which Krakovsky said “It will be an emotional and meaningful closing of a circle.”
!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)
{if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?
n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};
if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version=’2.0′;
n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;
t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];
s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,’script’,
‘https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js’);
fbq(‘init’, ‘1730128020581377’);
fbq(‘track’, ‘PageView’);
