Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-01-26-Speech-3-151"
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"en.20050126.8.3-151"2
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"Mr President, when we are dealing with crimes as terrible as those which occurred in Auschwitz, we have a particular duty to offend no one when telling the truth, but to ensure that this historical warning continues to be heeded and viewed in the proper context and in proportion. Otherwise, we run the risk of relying on lies or even tragicomedy. The Auschwitz camp was built by Germany’s Nazi authorities on land they had occupied in Poland, a country that was attacked and divided up by the Third Reich and the USSR in September 1939. Although the camp’s first prisoners and victims were mainly Poles, it was later turned into an extermination camp for Jews so that the Third Reich could implement the ‘Final Solution’. As a result, over a million Jews were killed in Auschwitz, as well as around 75 000 Poles, around 20 000 Roma and tens of thousands of persons of other nationalities, including several dozen homosexuals. As has already been stated in this House, anti-Semitism was also prevalent in countries other than the Third Reich. The Nazi German state was, however, the only one to implement the plan to exterminate the Jews. Poles understand that contemporary Germans bear no responsibility for the crimes of their forefathers. They understand the Holocaust was an event that was unprecedented in history, and that the extermination of the Roma has often been sidelined. Yet what Poles do not understand, and what they will never agree to, is a belittling of their nation’s suffering during the Second World War. They will also never agree to the use of the phrases ‘Polish concentration camps’ or ‘death camps in Poland’. Political correctness on the issue of the Nazis’ nationality does not help to build the trust and reconciliation that Poles find particularly important. We should not be afraid to talk about these distressing facts as openly as Mr Fischer did during the recent debate at the UN, and as Mr Schulz did in this Chamber a short while ago. The life of every person is of equal worth, but when large numbers are at issue, placing the Jewish, Roma, homosexual and Polish victims on a par in a list borders on the absurd. Regardless of these painful considerations, however, the Union for Europe of the Nations Group believes that the memory of the enormity of the crimes committed in the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp should be kept alive in order to ensure that this kind of genocide can never be repeated."@en1
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