Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-01-27-Speech-4-008"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20050127.4.4-008"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:translated text |
"We had planned to dedicate a statement and a minute’s silence to the memory of the Auschwitz-Birkenau tragedy today and I believe we must go ahead with that.
Ladies and gentlemen, today is a sad day of commemoration for the whole of humanity. On a day like today in 1945 the soldiers of the Red Army liberated the Nazi extermination camp whose name has become engraved on man's collective memory. It has become engraved on our collective memory as the name of absolute horror, of evil, in its most extreme form, of industrialised, planned and documented crime.
We are still all astounded that it could have happened. But it did happen. It is unimaginable, but it was real. Today, a delegation from this Parliament, made up of the presidents of all the political groups, and the largest of the delegations to go to Auschwitz, will participate in the ceremony in tribute to those victims, together with former prisoners, Heads of State or Government of many countries and some of the soldiers who liberated the camp. In that way, we will be paying tribute to the victims, but, above all, we will be remembering that evil that led to the deaths of millions of Jews merely because they were Jews, and of ethnic minorities, homosexuals and political prisoners of various nationalities. It is an evil that affects all of us. Of course it affects the victims and their descendants, but it also affects those of us who were not there, those of us who cannot remember because we did not see it. Auschwitz should remind us of the battle between remembering and forgetting, the battle of memory against something we would like never to have happened, because people who forget their history are destined to repeat it.
The Holocaust is a great problem for the whole of humanity. It is not just a problem for the Nazi murderers and the Jewish victims. Its roots are deeply embedded in some of the characteristics which have frequently shown their hideous face throughout human history. Today, 60 years later, we must continue to fight everything that made it possible: racism, anti-Semitism, xenophobia, interracial hate, the indifference of our society, which believes that it has nothing to do with it, until it finally realises that it does, that it also affects it, but by then it is too late.
To that end, and so that we do not forget it, we shall also vote today on a resolution on the memory of the Holocaust and anti-Semitism.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have the obligation to work every day, not just when the fascination of round figures, 60 years, – why 60 and not 59? – revives the memory, but every day, so that the values of our Constitution – peace, human rights, respect and tolerance – which are entirely contrary to what happened in Auschwitz, are spread and defended in schools, at work, on the stairs, in the street, in the bars, in everybody’s shared daily lives. Remembering Auschwitz offers us an opportunity to defend the values of our Constitution and to take this opportunity to defend human dignity, which was so horrifically violated in that place.
Ladies and gentlemen, I would ask that we observe a minute’s silence."@en1
|
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples