Brigitte Zypries

BRIGITTE ZYPRIES: Even decades after the end of World War II and the Holocaust, we still owe a certain dignity to victims' memories. We must protect their memory and their dignity from lies.

ALEISA FISHMAN: As Germany's Justice Minister, Brigitte Zypries is responsible for upholding justice, rights, and democracy in her country. Zypries explains why her government passed a law making Holocaust denial a criminal offense and why that law is important.

Welcome to Voices on Antisemitism, a podcast series from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum made possible by generous support from the Oliver and Elizabeth Stanton Foundation. I'm your host, Aleisa Fishman. Every other week, we invite a guest to reflect about the many ways that antisemitism and hatred influence our world today. From Berlin, here's Minister Brigitte Zypries.

BRIGITTE ZYPRIES: It is a criminal offense in Germany to publicly deny or trivialize the Holocaust. In light of our history we find it intolerable to allow others to spread lies about this terrible period in our past, and the inhumanity that prevailed during the so-called Third Reich. The reasons for this law are not so much any incidents in the recent past, but our history itself. Germans planned and perpetrated the Holocaust. We must confront this fact and accept our own guilt and the responsibility that results from it.

I think all Germans, regardless of their faiths, owe this to our history. It remains important that we do not leave any room for Holocaust deniers. Neo-Nazi ideology tries to downplay the Nazi regime and the terrible events of the Third Reich, and this is something we have to fight. We need to respond to hate speech, lies, and prejudice. That's why we also have to keep up our efforts to educate people, especially young people, about the terrible things of the Holocaust.

In Germany freedom of expression is a central basic right, same as in the United States. And it's protected by the German Constitution as well. But however this basic right is not granted without restriction. Our Federal Constitutional Court has ruled that the ban on Holocaust denial does not violate this basic right of freedom of expression. The so-called Auschwitz Lie is insulting to Holocaust survivors and other Jewish people alive, and it often comes along with incitement against them.

Of course we have people in Germany which try to deny the Holocaust. But in Germany we wanted to be very clear, and that's why we put up this law and said in Germany it is not allowed to deny these things which are historically proved.

ALEISA FISHMAN: Voices on Antisemitism is a podcast series of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Join us every other week to hear a new perspective on the continuing threat of antisemitism in our world today. We would appreciate your feedback on this series. Please visit our website, www.ushmm.org.