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Statement by the Prime Minister following the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the camp in Auschwitz
Time stood still and I was lost for words as I stood at the camp in Auschwitz, Poland. A place and a name that are forever engraved in history as synonymous with the lack of humanity. 80 years have passed, but the shock remains. It upsets the silence that weighs on these desecrated grounds and calls us to action.
80 years since millions of people fell victim to one of the greatest horrors ever committed in human history, here and across Europe, by the Nazi regime. 80 years since the world discovered the scale of the murder machinery designed to execute the meticulous massacre of 6 million Jews and millions of other innocent lives. 1.1 million people brutally murdered in Auschwitz alone, with shocking banality. Only 7,000 saved when it was liberated.
As we commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day, it is still difficult to fathom the heinous savagery that took place at this site, marked by the cruelty of which humans are sometimes capable. And yet Auschwitz is proof that it happened. The shoes and clothes, the suitcases and glasses that are still there, are proof. The muted screams of babies, children, women and men that echo across time are proof.
Gallery 1
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Laying candles in front of the symbol of the commemorations, the freight wagon
© SIP / Jean-Christophe Verhaegen
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(speaker) n.c., Auschwitz survivor
© SIP / Jean-Christophe Verhaegen
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(speaker) n.c., Auschwitz survivor
© SIP / Jean-Christophe Verhaegen
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General view
© SIP / Jean-Christophe Verhaegen
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(speaker) n.c., Auschwitz survivor
© SIP / Jean-Christophe Verhaegen
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(left to right) HRH the Crown Princess; HRH the Crown Prince
© SIP / Jean-Christophe Verhaegen
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Illustration
© SIP / Jean-Christophe Verhaegen
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Luc Frieden, Prime Minister
© SIP / Jean-Christophe Verhaegen
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Illustration
© SIP / Jean-Christophe Verhaegen
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(left to right) HRH the Crown Princess; HRH the Crown Prince
© SIP / Jean-Christophe Verhaegen
This is a place for reflection. But above all, it must be a place for reaction. If it does not spur us on to act, we risk becoming moral accomplices. History will judge in equal measure the perpetrators of these acts, as it will those who have not learnt the lesson.
Attacks on our universal values of freedom, democracy and equality start, always and everywhere, by a feeling of superiority towards others whose human dignity is denied. And, seeing the state of the world around us, such ideas and their indecent peddlers, are regaining confidence.
Never again, this has been our credo for 80 years. If this is the goal, we need to resist any resurgence. Before action, there's speech. Before speech, there's thought. Let us fight, now and forevermore, against ideas that trivialize this human catastrophe and seek to divide us by inciting hatred of others. Let us fight instead for a world in peace, built on the respect of human dignity and fundamental freedoms. For a better world and the economic and social progress of all people.
Press release by the Ministry of State