Israeli Foreign Minister Lapid and Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer visit the Mauthausen Concentration Camp in Austria, on Jan. 27, 2022. Photo: Shlomi Amsalem/GPO

Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer on Thursday apologized on behalf of the Republic to Israel’s Foreign Minister Yair Lapid for the crimes committed at the Nazis’ Mauthausen concentration camp in Austria.

Lapid, whose grandfather Bela Lampel perished in Mauthausen, attended the commemoration ceremony to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

“I apologize on behalf of the Republic of Austria for the crimes committed here. I apologize that your grandfather was murdered here,” Nehammer said during his speech.

Speaking at the ceremony, Lapid recounted the story of his grandfather, who was picked up by the SS from his home in March 1944 in presence of his wife and Lapid’s father, Tommy Lapid, and never returned.

“When he arrived here, he was no longer a dad, he was no longer a person. He was a number,” Lapid said. “I came here today to remind the world that Bela Lampel was not a number. He was my grandfather. He loved his beautiful wife. He went to football matches with his child. He loved to have an omelet at the coffee shop next to his home.”

According to the records at Mauthausen, Lampel died in April 1945, just a few weeks before Nazi Germany surrendered.

“That was the last significant thing the Nazis did — killing my grandfather,” Lapid stated. “But dying was not the last significant thing that he did. Because my grandfather did one other thing, even if he did it after his death: Grandpa Bela, a quiet man whose family nickname was ‘Bela the Wise,’ sent me here today to say on his behalf, that the Jews have not surrendered. They’ve established a strong, free, and proud Jewish state, and they sent his grandson, to represent them here today.”

“The Nazis thought they were the future, and that Jews would be something you only find in a museum. Instead, the Jewish state is the future, and Mauthausen is a museum,” he continued.

“Rest in peace, grandfather, you won.”

Lapid recited the mourner’s Kaddish and laid a wreath on behalf of the Israeli government. He also lit a candle in the memorial’s Room of Names for his grandfather and in memory of all those who perished at Mauthausen.

“We can’t undo these hideous crimes. But we can ensure that we will never forget and continue our fight against every form of antisemitism,” Nehammer commented. “Hatred has no place in Austria. It is up to all of us to ensure that the darkest chapter of our history is never repeated.”

“As the federal government, it is our goal to actively promote Jewish life in Austria. This includes our national strategy in the fight against antisemitism and the law to safeguard Austrian-Jewish cultural heritage,” he added.

The event came as Israeli officials, foreign leaders and Jewish communities marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day in ceremonies around the world.

In Germany, Israeli Knesset Speaker Mickey Levy gave a historic speech to the German parliament at the Reichstag building, where he tearfully read from the Mourner’s Kaddish from the prayer book of a Jewish boy used at his 1938 bar mitzvah.

Addressing Israel’s diplomatic corps in a virtual speech, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett called for combating “indifference with initiative, inaction with engagement, by combating injustice with truth.”

“It is our vow that the Jewish people will never again be powerless, never again be voiceless, and never again be homeless,” Bennett remarked.