Dear Friends,
It is an honour to address you on the occasion of the commemoration of the victims of the Holocaust.
On the 27th of January 1945, more than 7.000 prisoners were liberated from the place described as the “Metropolis of the Death”.
I am speaking to you today from this place, the concentration and extermination camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau, created by the Nazi regime in Polish areas annexed by Hitler, in September 1939.
This is a place of unspeakable crimes against humanity.
It is a place where human morality, respect for the value of life and human dignity vanished.
More than 1.1 million innocent people, mostly Jews, but also Poles, Roma, Soviet prisoners of war, people of various nationalities, infants, the elderly, the sick or the vulnerable, were murdered here by the Nazi regime, without any hesitation.
And yet, this is also a place of compassion and courage, where people helped each other, under the most horrendous circumstances, refusing to give up their humanity and solidarity.
Like Simone Veil who shared her cloth with a fellow inmate.
Both to those that survived and bore witness, as well as to the less fortunate ones, our eternal duty is to pay tribute and to remember.
To never forget.
Because when we talk about the Holocaust, we do not talk about distant history, or a distant land.
This is our European heritage, our historic burden, as well as our duty, towards humanity.
This duty is reflected in the very essence of the European Union, to create a continent and contribute to a world of longstanding peace and security, of democracy, fundamental values and principles.
We have aspired to create equal, fair, open and democratic societies, free of hate, free of prejudice, free of violence and abuse.
Societies where people have the same opportunities, no matter what their background, religion, ethnicity or name is.
But we should make no mistake: none of this should be taken for granted.
We must never forget. We must always remember.
We must pass the message of what happened here to the future generations of Europe, of the world.
We must never give up our efforts to teach and learn about the Holocaust.
Because, what happened in Auschwitz should not be repeated anywhere on the globe.
The European Commission, and personally, in my capacity as the European Commissioner for Migration, Home Affairs and Citizenship, we will continue encouraging and actively supporting initiatives and projects that promote respect, tolerance and solidarity in the European societies.
The museum of Auschwitz-Birkenau is a unique monument of the darkest memory of the history of humankind.
The European Commission, through the Europe for Citizens programme, has contributed to keeping this memory alive.
It has been said that history repeats itself. It is not true. People repeat history because they do not learn it. That is why we must never forget the dark past on which the fundaments of European society have been built, and why we must preserve these fundaments.
People in Europe and around the world are tempted of the raising demagogic, xenophobic and racist voices that tell us that not all people are equal, that the “other” or the “unknown” is a threat and that we can judge people according to the colour of their skin or their religion.
We need to safeguard Europe and the world, from these voices.
Our common European values and our commitment to defend them are the fundaments that make the European Union strong.
Europe witnessed the worst horrors against Jewish people, the torture and the extermination of 6 million innocent human lives.
The Holocaust was the result of attitudes that are again on the rise in Europe and around the world.
Rising anti-semitism has been and still is a warning sign that our fundamental values are in danger.
We need to continuously deconstruct anti-Semitic discourses and make all the efforts to safeguard the European Union as a place of diversity and tolerance.
The International Holocaust Remembrance Day is there to remind us of our responsibility to fight against Anti-Semitism rhetoric and attitude; our responsibility not to forget, always to remember. Never again.
The European Union is above all a project of peace. While we must never forget the dark ghosts of the past, we must never allow them to resurrect.
Thank you very much.