The Executive Vice President of the International Auschwitz Committee, Christoph Heubner, today addressed this open letter to the President of the TU Berlin, Geraldine Rauch, who yesterday refused to resign from office following her anti-Semitic gaffes.
Open letter
Dear Madam President!
You have now had another night's sleep and time to reconsider your decision not to resign. It is still to be hoped that you have come to realize how damaging your actions will be to your position as President of one of Germany's most prestigious universities in the long term, as will your questionable capacity to judge and your credibility in academic and human terms.
No Jewish student will feel welcome at "your" university, especially in these days and months, or even in the future, and you alone are responsible for this with your foolhardy and haphazardly distributed ‘likes’. How can someone who allows herself to irresponsibly lash out in a supposedly private space credibly continue heading a university of tolerance and togetherness? And how can she maintain this stance both inside and outside the university?
In addition to your misguided personal decision, Madam President, you are also implicating many of your colleagues from various areas in the university and making them jointly liable, thus creating the impression that the fight against anti-Semitism at your university is in reality nothing more than lip service. At a time when anti-Semitic hatred and right-wing extremist agitation are reaching a scale of unprecedented proportions, your attitude is catastrophic, for you personally, for the university, and for our country. It is leaving Holocaust survivors increasingly perplexed and dismayed as they look at what is happening in Germany.
I am therefore kindly and firmly requesting you to finally make your resignation a reality.
Christoph Heubner
Executive Vice President
International Auschwitz Committee