New German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas visited the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial and museum in Jerusalem on Sunday, at the start of a two-day visit to the region.
Maas toured the museum's Hall of Names and attended a memorial ceremony at the Hall of Remembrance. Later on Sunday, he met with Israeli President Reuven Rivlin.
"We must keep the memory," Maas said at the memorial. "Germany is responsible for the most cruel crimes in human history. For us, the Holocaust is both a warning sign and a commitment to work around the world for human rights and for tolerance. We should object to anti-Semitism and racism and act against it every day, everywhere."
A strong advocate of minority rights, Maas also sharply condemned rising anti-Semitism in Germany following a recent incident at an elementary school in Berlin.
Maas told the German daily Bild on Sunday that "if a child is threatened in anti-Semitic ways, that's shameful and unbearable. We have to counter any kind of anti-Semitism decisively."
The daily Berliner Zeitung reported earlier this week that a Jewish girl was abused at a Berlin elementary school by Muslim immigrant children "because she doesn't believe in Allah," and that in the past she had also received death threats.
Anti-Semitic incidents at schools across Germany have risen in recent years and have led to some Jewish students leaving public schools for private schools.
On Monday, Maas is scheduled to meet with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.
