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"Those who lived through the hell of the camps never forget. The others - the younger generations - must not be allowed to forget."

Krakow -
Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Excerpts from speech by European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek at the conference of the European Jewish Congress in Krakow, "Let my people live":

  • I am here today in Kraków as a representative of the peoples of a united Europe. A Europe that is proud of its identity; proud of having been able to reach a consensus in spite of the obstacles. But the journey towards that consensus was a long and difficult one. I am here today with more than 20 MEPs from different Member States.
  • The Shoah is an incomparable tragedy. We are here together to express our solidarity and honour the memory of the tragedy that was the Holocaust.
  • The European Union - whose citizens are represented in the Parliament of which I am the President - came into being in order to prevent any recurrence of the nightmare of war. We always have to remember the horror of Nazi death camps. The election of Simone Veil, a former extermination camp inmate, as the President of the first democratically elected European Parliament was symbolic and important.
  • It is our duty as Europeans to ensure remembrance and to educate. Those who lived through the hell of the camps never forget. But there are fewer and fewer of them among us. The others - the younger generations - must not be allowed to forget.
  • The recent theft of the historic sign 'Arbeit macht frei' was an example of the failure to remember, and of a lack of education. The theft for former detainees was like stealing a sacred object. It is to be welcomed that the police swiftly caught the young thieves. But it is to be deplored that nobody taught them to respect what is sacred.
  • To the spirits of our forebears who were murdered here, we can say that we are all here together in order to ensure that their tragedy - which is our tragedy too - is never repeated.

EP President Jerzy Buzek for many years has been engaged in preserving the memory of the tragedy of Auschwitz. At a time when he was Prime Minister of Poland, he created a protection zone around Auschwitz.  He initiated the Strategic Government Programme to ensure proper places for worship to commemorate the mass extermination of Jews, Poles, Russians and others.  He launched the International Education Centre in Oświęcim (the city where the Memorial and Museum of Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp is located).  He was the first Prime Minister of Poland to take part in the "March of the Living" together with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu in 1998.

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