"Young Germans Have a Responsibility to Learn From History"

The Action Reconciliation Service for Peace (ASF) was founded by the synod of the Evangelical Church in Germany in 1958 in response to Nazi atrocities during World War II. Since 1961, Action Reconciliation has sent thousands of young Germans to Israel to volunteer in nursing homes, youth centers, hospitals and memorial sites. The grassroots work of this social action group became the basis of a political rapprochement between Germany and Israel, when diplomatic relations were established in 1965. Today, Germany is among Israel's most important allies and trading partners in Europe.

DW-WORLD.DE spoke to Philipp Pohlmann, 25, who spent a year volunteering in Israel. Today, he is a regional spokesman for the group in the Cologne area.

DW-WORLD.DE: How did you wind up joining ASF?

Philipp Pohlmann: In Germany, young men are conscripted into military service after they graduate from high school, generally between the ages of 16-20, but most get out of it nowadays. Some are disqualified because of a minor physical disability, but those who get a clean bill of health, like I did, can opt to do community service instead. The third possibility is to fulfill the civil service requirement abroad, which is what I chose to do.

Why did you specifically choose ASF?

Their focus on Germany's historic responsibility to Jews living in Israel and all over the world appealed to me. I wanted personally to meet the last survivors of Auschwitz or other camps. It is one thing to learn about the Nazi period through textbooks, which is an obligatory part of the German school curriculum, but it's another to learn about the past in a personal way.