Special Assembly - Remembering the Past, Shaping the Future

Distinguished Mr. President,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
When the world lived through the Shoah, one of the darkest acts engraved on the historic memory of civilization, I was at the age of a pupil. As citizen of an occupied, impoverished and freedom thirsty country, I was fortunate to witness some of the most humane, civil and noble acts of my people: resisting to the occupation, the Albanians sheltered and shared the war’s grieving days with thousands of Jews, a part of whom chose Albania to live. Albania was the only European country where at the end of Second World War counted inside...

I speak on behalf of the Government and the people of Australia in recognising the enormous significance of Yad Vashem to Israel, to Jewish people around the world and, indeed, to all of us, wherever we come from.The museum is a testament to the millions of men, women and children who lost their lives in the Holocaust and a solemn reminder of the devastating consequences of anti-Semitism, racial hatred and persecution.Our sense of loss and sorrow is not only for the many who might have been with us tday, but also for the vitality and the talents that were lost to humanity as a whole - and forever.

On behalf of the Austrian Federal President Dr. Heinz Fischer, I would like to express my gratitude and appreciation to the persons in charge of Yad Vashem. I congratulate you on the impressive precision and educational wisdom that have gone into the new museum and made it a unique documentation of the Shoah and the historical context leading up to it.

Whenever I think of the Holocaust, I see that same photograph in my mind's eye. A young boy in Auschwitz. Wearing short trousers and a cap on his head. His hands up. There is nobody around him. He is standing alone, totally alone, staring into the barrel of a gun.His picture is burnt into my brain. I feel as if that young boy is looking at me with uncomprehending eyes. He asks me: "What is going on? Where are my parents, my brothers, my sisters? How can people do such things? What did I do wrong?"These are questions I cannot answer. Something that cannot be comprehended. It looks...

Excellencies 
Dear Friends, Being here today, in this sacred place I bow my head before the shadows of millions of Jewish victim. Victims of the Holocaust, millions of dead each and every time, again, warn us living, not to have those horrible times ever and nowhere repeated.
Coming from Bosnia and Herzegovina, with the experience of the loss in my own family and my close friends in the Doboj camp In the World War I. in the death camp In Jasenovac-Gradina in the World War ll, when hundreds of thousands, mostly Serbs, Jews and Roma were mercilessly murdered, I pay sincere tribute...

 As I rise to speak, I am reminded of the words of the Cantor during the Yom Lippur service- הנני העני ממעש' I am inadequate in word and in deed, for I have neither the wisdom of the scholar nor the experience if the survivor. I only know what my parents tought me as a young boy. The profoundity and pain of which I only realized years later - that there are things in Jewish history - human history - that are too terrible to be believed but not too terrible to have happened.Indeed, the horror of the Holocaust - of the death camps - is beyond vocabulary. Words may sometimes...

Chairman of the Board of Governors, World Jewish Congress; President of the Conference of Jewish Material Claims Against Germany; Vice-Chairman of the Yad Vashem Council.It is truly a pleasure to speak after you, Mr. Vice President of Norway, Jan Petersen, and I remember clearly when we went to Oslo the first time to introduce the struggle for Jewish memory and restitution in the 1990’s and almost fell through an open door and indeed we found how a nation found its own past and attempted to train its own people to re-educate its own people, to understand what happened – if only to a...

Yad Vashem’s mission is to memorialize and research the genocide of the Jewish people at the hands of National Socialist Germany and its collaborators, and educate about it. That is the purpose of the new museum. Yad Vashem deals not only with the Jewish victims, but also, and in detail, with the perpetrators and the bystanders. Yet our emphasis is on the Jews – they were not just objects of an evil Nazi regime; they were subjects, actors, with a tremendously rich, variegated, often contradictory cultural heritage. We want to know who they were, what they did before they became victims,...

Mr. President of the State of Israel, Distinguished Presidents and Prime Ministers, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, As a rule museums are places where they keep beautiful and praiseworthy things. One goes to museums in order to enjoy the exhibits. The Museum which is now being opened in Jerusalem differs completely from the standard understanding of a museum. It preserves the memory of something indescribably and incomprehensibly horrible. When visiting it, regardless of all previous knowledge of history, one is left speechless when faced with the truth about what some people were capable...

Ladies and gentlemen, In 1963 an American researcher was examining in the Jewish Museum in Prague a collection of Old Testament parchments, which had been stored there at the time of the holocaust, when a small piece of paper fell aut of one of the scrolls. It contained the words "God help us in these difficult times".

President Katsav,
esteemed Heads of State, honoured collagues; 
Ladies and gentlemen, Standing here today, at Yad Vashem, I cannot but feel a sense of the enormity of the events which these surroundings commemorate. The suffering, the loss, the despair are almost impossible to imagine.But looking at these long lists of names we are only too aware that these things did happen and must never be forgotten.

Last January, the United Nations commemorated the 60th anniversary of the day on which the allied troops arrived at the doors of the Auschwitz concentration camp to evidence the horror that the cruel persecution and extermination unleashed by the Nazi meant for the Jewish People at the end of the 30’s. Death camps, torture, annihilation, desolation in the name of race and of an alleged scientific notion; but also fields of heroism, resolve, selflessness and faith in convictions.

Excellencies, Ladies and GentlemenAs a nation who has had a very difficult history Estonia finds it important to value the memory of people who have suffered through Holocaust and all other crimes against humanity. We must not forget what happened in Europe during WW II, the most tragic period of the last century. We neither can forget nor forgive the devastating work carried out against the Jews on the territory of Estonia and elsewhere in Europe.Since Estonia regained its independence in 1991 we have come a long way towards shining light of truth of the European tragedies of the 20th century....

President Katsav, 
Excellencies, 
Ladies and gentlemen, I have been to Vad Vashem many times, even before becoming Foreign Minister. Whenever my trips to Israel allow, I come to this place. 

Seul le prononcé fait foi)  Monsieur le Président de l’Etat d’Israël,  Monsieur le Secrétaire Général,  Messieurs les Présidents,  Messieurs les Premiers Ministres, Messieurs les Ministres, Mesdames, Messieurs Il est difficile de parler en ce lieu.Le silence est, d’instinct, la première réponse et le seul hommage que l’on sente digne du souvenir qui règne ici.Souvenir d’une souffrance indicible, autant que le crime qui l’a causée – nos mots seront toujours trop pauvres face à eux.Notre parole vient après l’horreur....

Mr. President of the State of Israel
Mr. Prime Minister
Mr. Chairman of Yad Vashem
Members of the Cabinet and the Knesset
Ladies and GentlemenThe completion of the new wing of the Holocaust Museum is indeed a remarkable project.From a historical perspective, it contributes to the remembrance of the victims of the Holocaust through extensive research and the presentation of individual stories which focus on the human person.From a political perspective, it contributes to the remembrance of the consequences on humanity as a result of the absence of effective mechanisms of democratic...

Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Friends,As your beautiful saying has it, he who saves the life of one man, saves the world. It is not at all difficult for me to fully enter into the spirit of this thought, for I myself could not be here with you, I could not have looked up at the trees planted in honor of the rescuers and I would not have been able to experience that vivid pain in the Children's Memorial, has my father not been saved in those days.

Mr. President ,
Excellences ,
Ladies and gentlemen ,
Dear friends,It is difficult to describe the emotions that I feel here, at this place of remembrance, which was built to commemorate the mass murder of millions of human beings. The people who we are commemorating here today had their lives extinguished for one, and only one reason: they all happened to be Jewish. The scope of the Shoah, or Holocaust, is so wide that it defies human comprehension. Among the millions who perished in the Shoah were tens of thousands of Latvian Jews – merchants, scientists, and teachers; men and...

Your Excellency President Moshe Katsav, Chairman Avner Shalev, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, I deeply thank you for the privilege of taking part in this highly significant event. This new museum puts man face-to-face with conscience and with history. The 20th century always will be also remembered for human sufferings and lost lives. No other nation has faced greater losses that befell the European Jewish communities. The Jews of Europe had fallen victim to the downfall of civilization and culture which had brought the Third Reich to barbaric racism.

Mr President, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,There are some places and events that will never be lost in history; and that will always remain enshrined in the memory of mankind.After Auschwitz-Birkenau, Bergen-Belsen, Treblinka, to name just a few, the conscience of man cannot remain the same.This unspeakable evil defies language and understanding. It remains an ever-open wound in the moral conscience of humanity.I am deeply moved and honoured to speak today at the site of Yad Vashem. With the most profound emotion I bow, on behalf of the Government of Luxembourg, to the memory of unspeakable...

Distinguished Mr. President Katsav
Distinguished Excellencies,
Distinguished citizens of Israel,
Jewish from the Diaspora,
Ladies and GentlemenNothing can be compared to the sufferings of the Jewish people during one of the most obscure periods of mankind – the years of the Holocaust. Now, 60 years after the end of the monstrous crimes, the civilized world is still unable to fully perceive the consequences of the crimes that have marked for eternity the history of mankind as a dark shadow. The size of the crimes are unimaginable since they resulted with: loss of lives...

.."The Jews perform human sacrifices of non-Jews. The victim’s blood is kneaded into the holy matzo dough when or just before it is rolled out. Their high priests use the blood in their magic ceremonies.".."The Jews are world champions at spreading corruption and immorality"These are two modest quotes from the introduction to the new edition of the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" published in Syria two months ago becoming a bestseller at the book fair in Cairo month ago and reaching the shops of Paris, London and Amsterdam last week.In the last two years, I...

Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, Among the many personal papers stored here in Yad Vashem is the photograph album of a Dutch woman named Miep Groenendijk and her foster-daughter Dot

President Katsav, Prime Minister Sharon, Excellencies, We are paying tribute today to the millions who perished in the Nazi concentration and extermination camps. We are keeping them in our thoughts and expressing our solidarity with the survivors. We must never forget. We must remember and learn from what happened in the Holocaust.

Ladies and Gentlemen! I am extremely honored and truly moved that I can – along with representatives of so many nations take part in this extraordinary event here at Yad Vashem. The new Museum makes an indelible impression on all visitors, and is a forceful reminder of the enormity of the tragedy that was the Holocaust. It also inspires us to think of ways in which to keep the memory of those inhuman times alive. I feel especially bound to do so as the proud holder of an honorary doctorate conferred by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Dear friends: Today, on this historical occasion and at this unique venue (Yad Vashem, “a memorial and a name”), let me briefly tell you a story that many of you have never heard. This will be our way of paying tribute to the lasting memory of someone who should be so dear to Israeli and Portuguese hearts.

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear friends, The Yad Vashem Memorial is a place for remembrance of both the victims and of the survivors of the darkest period in the history of Europe. It is a place of reflection for everyone, generation after generation, Jews or not, people who experienced the horrors of the Holocaust, youngsters who learn about it just now, and for the generations to follow. It is also a lesson we must learn from the past, so that nothing even slightly similar will ever have a chance to happen again.

Dear Mr. President of the State of Israel, 
Mr. Chairman of the Directorate of the Yad Vashem Memorial,
Esteemes Ladies and Gentlemen, I would like to convey to all those who have gathered here today to the inauguration of the new Yad Vashem Museum, a message of greetings by Vladimir V. Putin, President of the Russian federation. President of Russia attached particuker importance to this event Which takes place in the year of the 60th anniversary of victory over fascism. In our country we feel deep respect and gratitude for those who devoted their lives to the preservation of...

Esteemed President Katzav, 
Esteemed Director General Amrami, 
Ladies and Gentlemen, Today as we are attending the opening ceremony of the new wing of the Yad Vashem Memorial Center, I wish at this place that is holy to all the world's Jews, to briefly remind you of the innocent Jewish victims who perished during World War 2 in territory of Serbia and Montenegro. Before World War 2 around 34,000 Jews were living in Serbia and Montenegro accounting for almost half of all the Jews in the former Yugoslavia. Close to 29,000 or 86 per cent of them found their death in Nazi pogroms. 

Distinguished President of the State of Israel, Excellencies, Distinguished Solemn Gathering, I believe that in this place one can only stand deeply moved by the cruel fate of defenceless people and also by human solidarity and unity that saved the lives of many. The Holocaust is the darkest stain on the history of mankind, when persons belonging to certain nations, in particular the Jews, marked as undesired by the fascist were exterminated in a systemic, premeditated and cruel way. In those days a human being – a Jew became a mere number and implement. They were degradingly marked with...

Mr. President,
Mr. Chairman,
Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,We have gathered here in order to pay tribute to the millions of innocent victims, to remember the horrors they suffered, and to reaffirm our commitment to the struggle against intolerance and antiSemitism. The Shoah is not just another sad part of history. It is a negation of our civilization and of humanity.

Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is for me a pleasure to represent the Spanish people and their Government on such a significant occasion, in which the memory of the Holocaust is revitalised with the opening of this Museum at Jerusalem.

President Katsav,
Heads of State and Government,
Excellencies,
Survivors of the Shoah,
Ladies and Gentlemen,On the 27th of January this year I attended the Memorial Service for the Victims of the Holocaust at the Stockholm Synagogue. One of the speakers was a young girl, Sarah Shulman, representing the third generation of Holocaust survivors. Sarah spoke of a childhood full of tales, well known tales of characters like Tevje der milchiker. But also tales of love and joy and everyday life in the “shteitels”, tales told with warmth and wit by her grandfather Isidor. There...

Excellencies,
adies and GentlemenSix weeks ago we commemorated the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. The major international participation – of Holocaust survivors and heads of state – is proof that Auschwitz continues as ever to be a universal and important symbol of the Holocaust. We are reminded once again that there are no words to express the full horror of the crimes that were committed. Nevertheless, we are bound to keep talking about them and to keep their memory alive.

With awe and reverence we are gathered here to dedicate the new Holocaust museum, here, on Har Hazikkaron, the Mount of Remembrance, in Yad Vashem, in Jerusalem. Within a few years the few who survived the inferno, those who left behind in Europe their parents, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, and all those dear to them, will pass on. They left behind their spiritual world, their culture, the rhythm of their lives, and their worldly goods. They came here naked and bereft of all and built new homes in their ancient homeland. 

I have the privilege of assuring you of the spiritual closeness of Pope John Paul II, as well as of the solidarity of the Catholic Church, some of whose distinguished representatives are also present with us today

The President of the State of Israel, H.E. Moshe Katsav,
Honorable representatives of the respectful countries,
Ladies and Gentlemen,I stand before you in this place where emotion mingles with contemplation and immense sorrow. On behalf of the Turkish people and the Turkish Government, I want to express our reverence for the victims of the immeasurable evil. Blessed be their souls and memories.

 Ladies and Gentlemen,On behalf of the people of Ukraine, educationalists and academics I would like to welcome you all who have come today to this Holy Place. The event that is taking place here is no doubt of historic importance.

I am honored to thank Yad Vashem for its great work. I do so on behalf of my Deputy Prime Minister, John Prescott, who has had to return to our Parliament

President Katsav;
Prime Minister Sharon;
Ministers Shalom and Livnat;
Mr. Shalev; and other distinguished guests…As the mayor of New York City – home to one of the largest populations of Holocaust survivors outside of Israel – I’m honored to be at this inauguration on behalf of President Bush and the American people.