Only with german passport?

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Serving food in front of a "food bank" facility © Harald Oppitz (KNA)

The Bishop of Hanover, Ralf Meister, has called on those responsible for the Essen food bank not to discriminate according to nationality when providing aid. Otherwise the solidarity breaks.

Neither for government agencies nor for civil society initiatives should the origin of those seeking help play a role, Meister said in a guest article for RedaktionsNetzwerk Deutschland on Saturday."Whoever is in need will be helped. We must not deviate one millimeter from this principle. Otherwise, solidarity – and with it charity – will break down."

Tafel is an "indispensable point of contact"

At the same time, the bishop of the largest Protestant church in Germany criticized politicians for the fact that more and more people are dependent on help from the Tafeln (food banks). The food banks were supposed to be a supplementary service that provided a little more quality of life in times of social hardship, Meister said.

Meanwhile they are however for many "an indispensable approach point, in order not to have to starve. This is the real scandal."In Essen, the political and social imbalance should not now be carried out on the backs of the weakest in the country. "All those responsible are called upon to find a solution."

Admission ban to be lifted again

The Essen Tafel had announced that until further notice it would only accept needy people with German passports as new customers. In justification, the board said the proportion of migrants among the 6.000 people who received regular food had risen to 75 percent. Older people and single parents would be creepily displaced in this way.

The board wants to lift the admission stop again, if the relationship is more balanced. The approximately 930 food banks in Germany collect surplus food that can still be used according to legal regulations and give it to the needy. They have committed themselves to certain principles and a mission statement in the Federal Association Tafel Germany.

Fair opportunities for all – this is what the leaders of the EU states want to discuss at the social summit in Gothenburg starting Friday. A recent study shows: The EU has become more socially just. Nevertheless, the DGB calls for more commitment from the German government.

"We call on the German government to work to ensure that fundamental social rights finally take precedence over competition law. "We need binding European workers’ rights so that the social dimension of the single market is significantly strengthened," DGB head Reiner Hoffmann told Die Welt (Thursday) ahead of the EU social summit in Gothenburg on Friday.

As examples of binding European workers’ rights, the DGB cited the demand for equal pay for equal work in the same place and Europe-wide rules on occupational health and safety based on European directives. The social summit must provide clear guidelines on how to deal with these ies in the future.

"Strong pillar for social justice"

"The EU social summit in Gothenburg can be an important step toward overcoming the crisis of confidence in Europe," Hoffmann continued. But this will only succeed "if previously non-binding rules with weak specifications become a strong pillar for social rights".

Marianne Thyssen, the EU Commissioner for Social Affairs, emphasized the importance of the meeting in Gothenburg: "This is the first time in twenty years that European heads of state and government have met for a social summit and that they agree that social Europe is the way forward. I think this will be a strong signal to people."

"Social justice index shows positive development"

According to a recent study by the Bertelsmann Foundation, the EU has become more socially just in recent years. According to the "Social Justice Index 2017" published in Gutersloh on Thursday, the main driver for the improved participation opportunities is a noticeable recovery on the labor market.

Ten years after the outbreak of the economic crisis in 2008, there are now signs of a trend reversal. "The bottom has been reached, but there are still clear deficits," concluded Daniel Schraad-Tischler, an expert on the labor market and social security systems and author of the study.

Gap between northern and southern Europe

For example, according to the study, unemployment has fallen significantly across the EU, but the recovery is proceeding at two speeds. The gap between northern and southern Europe remains wide – especially with regard to the threat of poverty and social exclusion of children and young people in southern Europe. Germany belongs to the "extended top group" and economically to the top performers. However, the authors see deficits in the fight against poverty as well as in education and intergenerational justice.

The foundation has used the index to examine participation opportunities in the EU annually since 2008, based on six dimensions: Poverty prevention, labor market, education, health non-discrimination and intergenerational equity. The study is based primarily on the most recent data from the European Statistics Authority, covering the year 2016.

Scandinavia in the lead

The Scandinavian countries, as well as the Czech Republic, Slovenia and the Netherlands, rank at the top, ahead of Germany. Greece is at the bottom of the rankings behind Romania, Bulgaria and Italy. However, the data on social justice refers to the standard of living in the respective country. For example, the poverty risk is 60 percent of the median income of the corresponding EU country. So a direct comparison is not possible in all areas.

Germany has the lowest youth unemployment in the EU and ranks in the top four for the overall employment index, the general unemployment rate and the labor force participation of older workers. However, Schraad-Tischler criticizes a high proportion of long-term unemployed people. It does not succeed to melt away the base lastingly. Furthermore, despite a "humming economy," there has been no progress in the fight against the risk of poverty.

The study also sees a "mixed picture" in terms of educational opportunities. She sees intergenerational justice in an imbalance, for example, due to the pension level and the national debt at the expense of younger people.

At first, she didn’t think anyone would be interested in "a schoolgirl’s heartbreak". But Anne Frank was wrong. The diary of the Jewish girl murdered by the Nazis became world famous.

Actually it was a poetry album. Almost square, with a red-and-white checkered cloth cover and a clasp at the front. The diary of Anne Frank. The Jewish girl had made it to 13. Birthday received as a gift from his parents. 75 years ago, on 12. June 1942, she wrote her first entry: "I will, I hope, be able to entrust you with everything, as I have never been able to do with anyone, and I hope you will be a great support to me."

Anne Frank emigrated from her hometown of Frankfurt am Main to the Netherlands in 1934 with her parents and sister after the Nazis seized power in 1933. In Amsterdam, the family went into hiding when Anne’s sister Margot received a call in July 1942 for deportation to the Westerbork camp, a transit camp for Jews in Holland. For a good two years, together with the van Pels family and the dentist Fritz Pfeffer, they hid in the back of Anne’s father Otto Frank’s company building at Prinsengracht 263.

At first, no ambitions as a writer

What Anne confided to her diary there is among the most harrowing accounts of persecution of Jews during the Nazi era. Addressee is an imaginary friend: "Dear Kitty! Between Sunday morning and now seem to be years. So much has happened, as if the world had suddenly turned upside down," wrote Anne Frank on 8. July 1942. Her last entry – some two years later – dates from 1. August 1944. On 4. August 1944 the hiding place was tracked down, all those in hiding there were arrested. Anne died in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in early 1945 – at just 15 years old.

Anne Frank must be imagined as a very fun-loving, not at all well-behaved girl. She questioned everything and everyone, observed and described the people around her closely, with wit and a sharp tongue. She wrote about her dreams, her longings, about love. At the same time, she reflected on the contradictory nature of her own character: There was, on the one hand, her "exuberant cheerfulness" and her "mockery of everything," but on the other hand, a more hidden side, "which is much more beautiful, purer and deeper".

At first, Anne did not have any great ambitions as a writer, as she revealed on 20 September. June 1942, a Saturday: "It’s a strange feeling for someone like me to write a diary," Hildegard Knef once sang. Not only have I never written, but I think that no one, neither I nor anyone else, will later be interested in the heartfelt emotions of a thirteen-year-old schoolgirl."

Suggestion by the radio

But in the spring of 1944 she heard on the radio from London a speech by the Dutch Minister of Education. He advised to publish after the war everything about the difficult time of the Dutch people during the German occupation, such as diary entries. As a result – historians say – Anne decided to publish a book after the war. On 5. April 1944 she wrote: "… Will I ever be able to write something great, will I ever become a journalist and writer?? I hope so, I hope so much! With writing I can express everything, my thoughts, my ideals and my fantasies."

Their father Otto was the only family member to survive the Nazi terror. He published his daughter’s diary in 1947 after a long period of reflection. In one of its latest entries from 15. Anne describes a kind of premonition of death in July 1944: "I see how the world is slowly being turned more and more into a desert, I hear the approaching thunder louder and louder, which will also kill us, I feel the suffering of millions of people with."But she continues defiantly: "And yet, when I look up to the sky, I think that everything will change for the better, that this hardship will also end, that peace and quiet will return to the world order."

A work of world literature

Anne Frank herself was no longer able to actively work on it. But their diary has become a work of world literature. It has been translated into more than 70 languages and sold 30 million copies. Her stash is now a museum, which saw a record number of visitors for the seventh year in a row in 2016. Last year, 1.29 million people came to the house where a Jewish girl once began writing her diary.

Norbert Demuth

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