In Berlin, Lapid comforts Holocaust survivor who froze at sight of German soldiers
PM offers support to Shoshana Trister, accompanies her off plane with German honor guard below; premier’s delegation on state visit to Germany includes 5 survivors, families
Prime Minister Yair Lapid helped a Holocaust survivor alight from their aircraft in Berlin on Monday after she became overwhelmed at seeing the honor guard of German soldiers.
Lapid arrived in Germany for a series of bilateral talks and top-level meetings where he presented Israel’s latest case against signing a renewed nuclear deal with Iran.
He was accompanied on the state visit by five Holocaust survivors and their family members, including Shoshana Trister who said the sight of German soldiers prompted a freeze response.
“I was completely frozen inside,” Trister told Channel 12 of her emotional state on seeing German soldiers down below. “I said to the prime minister, ‘Look at their hats.’”
“And he said to me ‘I’m holding you, you will go down with me, you are not alone.’”
A video showed the prime minister arm-in arm-with Trister, comforting her as they descended the stairs.
PM Lapid arrives in Berlin, Germany. As he landed, Yair Lapid, son of a Shoah survivor, declared: "This is our victory". pic.twitter.com/8FUxLVHuky
— Samuel Sabbah (@Samuel_Sabbah) September 11, 2022
Upon landing, Lapid said of the survivors: “This is their victory, mine as the son of a Holocaust survivor and ours as a people and a nation. We will never forget.”
Lapid’s paternal grandfather, Bela Lampel, was murdered at the Mauthausen camp in Austria in April 1945. He was taken from his home by an SS soldier in March 1944, in front of his wife, and Lapid’s father Tommy, then 12 years old. Tommy Lapid and his mother were saved by Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who famously rescued thousands of Jews from the Nazis. He eventually moved to Israel where he became a noted journalist, playwright and government minister.
Trister said she could not look at the soldiers when she arrived in Berlin.
“You have to understand, it was as if I was back there 85 years ago,” she said, adding that she came with him on the visit to Germany because “I want to tell the German chancellor, maybe you don’t see it upon us, but the suffering still exists inside.”
