‘Brandt
falls to his knees in the ghetto’ from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
Brandt
falls to his knees in the ghetto Walter Henkel reports on the events in Warsaw
Willy Brandt retains his composure even when laying wreaths. He comes across as self-confident — a man with
the inestimable advantage of a powerful physique that inspires confidence at an
ordinary human level. It takes a great
deal to throw him off balance. At
monuments of this kind, which are usually referred to in books as memorials, he
remains apparently frosty, unemotional and grudging. At 9.30 a .m. yesterday (Monday), he had laid a
wreath of white carnations at the Tomb of the Unknown Solder in Warsaw with
full military honours. Then the cavalcade carrying Mr Brandt and his Foreign
Minister, Walter Scheel, drove into the former ghetto, to the Monument to the
Heroes of the Ghetto. The ghetto had been established by the German occupying
forces between 1940 and 1943 and, in 1943, witnessed an uprising, mainly of the
Jewish population, during which half a million Jews were killed. Here, the Federal Chancellor laid his wreath
of white carnations embellished with two ribbons in the black, red and gold of
the German flag. And, suddenly,
Willy Brandt fell to his knees in front of this monument and bowed his head low.
He must have felt a deep sense of shame,
and there was not a German person present who did
not experience similar feelings. The
scene made a deep impression. The
Federal Chancellor paused for 20 or 30 seconds, while the 300 to 400 Poles who
witnessed the scene looked on expectantly. Some Jews were also present. Mr Brandt looks
older, Mr Scheel looks older. Nobody can
refrain from describing the scene in detail. All the men are pale: Carlo Schmid, Achenbach,
Ahlers, von Wechmar, Duckwitz, Klaus von Bismarck. State Secretary
Egon Bahr and the industrialist, Berthold Beitz, did not join the silent
procession from the road to the monument. The young Germans that Mr Brandt had brought
with him were also obviously moved.
At exactly
12 noon, the distinguished politicians entered the Hall of the former Radziwill
Palace, now the seat of the Polish Council of Ministers, to sign the Treaty. Mr Brandt was flanked by Party Secretary
Władysław Gomułka and Polish Premier Józef Cyrankiewicz. A crystal chandelier of red and gold hung from
the centre of the Hall’s ceiling. The
atmosphere was reminiscent of the era of the grand, elegant aristocracy who had
built such palaces in the 17th and 18th centuries. The very brief notes jotted down by the
several hundred journalists herded closely together in the audience had to
convey the details of an historic ceremony. Mr Cyrankiewicz took his seat at the table on
the left, his Foreign Minister, Stefan Jedrychowski, beside him, while Mr
Brandt and Mr Scheel took their seats on the right. Mr Gomułka
While Hatoyama Yukio
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