Prime Minister, the Foreign Minister of Poland, Righteous Among the Nations, among them Ms. Andrée Geulen, who saved 300 Jewish children during the Holocaust, and came specially from Belgium to be with us, Holocaust survivors, honored guests, citizens of Israel.
“Even if they speak for a thousand years, even if they relate for a thousand years, They will never finish telling the story of Treblinka.
The human language has not invented the words,
That can tell the story of Treblinka.” (Author Yehudit Hendel)
There are simply no words that can explain it. There is simply no language that is capable of containing it.
The testimonies preserved here at Yad Vashem are the human source from which we depart and to which we return, in our quest to comprehend, even if only in part.
To comprehend with the distance of years; to comprehend from the inability to absorb, and to reach the terrible, ungraspable understanding – yes, it happened! It happened!
It happened to millions, millions of real people, Jews like me, like you, like us, whose only sin was the fact that they were Jewish. Like me, like you, like us.
“In the Holocaust we learned that human evil can be institutionalized” wrote the late Judge Chaim Cohen. “The vast majority of the persecutions against the Jews were carried out officially, according to laws, regulations, orders or commands.”
The testimonies and biographies open a window onto a vibrant, rich and varied Jewish world that was and is no more. People who lived normal, busy lives, went to work and to school, raised families, people who loved and hated, prayed and dreamed, enthused and despaired, just like us.
All of us, all the people of the world have to tread carefully and to remember: the Holocaust was caused by human beings.
The Holocaust is not just a stain on German history, and it’s not just a stain on the history of the nations of Europe. The Holocaust is a mark of Cain on humanity as a whole.
You, who sit here with us tonight, have not stopped writing and giving testimony, even when the words are written with your heart’s blood.
In 1942, Chaim Kaplan, an educator in Warsaw wrote the following in his diary: “Some of my friends and acquaintances urge me to stop writing. I refuse to listen to them. I feel that continuing this diary to the very end of my physical and spiritual strength is a historical mission which must not be abandoned.”
My generation has read, heard and knows the stories of the survivors, and we stand here today with a sense of mission – towards the past, and the future.
A sense of mission borne not out of vengeance, but rather out of the determined and uncompromising effort to remember that we don’t have the right to forget, that we don’t have the authority to forgive, and that we have an obligation to testify and to document.
To you, Holocaust survivors, who bear the scars on your bodies and hearts, I wish to say that we bow our heads before you in humility. You who live in the shadow of memory every day of your lives; you, our brethren, are worthy of a life of dignity in the State of Israel.
Israeli society and the governments of Israel must ensure this. It is our moral duty that you be able to live a dignified life here.
We cannot accept a reality in which even one Holocaust survivor in Israel has to live without dignity.
Your choice to live is our glance towards the past, and our call to the future.
I have chosen to conclude with the touching words of Ya’akov, an 18 year-old Jewish boy:
“I can imagine a new life, a life with purpose, with a future. I can picture the journey to the land of my dreams. I can see myself leaving the deadlock of this life. I can see myself walking behind a plough, a rifle on my shoulders, light of heart and of step, proud and serene.
At the same time, it’s hard for me to believe in this distant and wonderful dream, but nevertheless I will fight to realize it, and to turn it into a reality.”
Citizens of Israel, tonight I say to you:
Brothers and sisters, look at this wonder. How we have all turned the dream into a reality. How, after the inferno our people suffered, we – “a brand plucked from the fire” (Zechariah 3, 2) – established a glorious independent state. A Jewish state. The State of Israel.
Despite all the difficulties, and no less than ten wars, we live in a country that is faithful and committed to moral and cultural values, a fledgling state founded on democratic principles that preserves human dignity and is currently fighting for its life, on its own strength.
The Nazi criminals cut off Ya’akov’s life, and he was not privileged to realize his dream. But each and every one of us here is realizing the dream, be it in our public or private lives.
In memory of the six million of our people who died a martyr’s death at the hands of the Nazis and their collaborators – from here, from the very heart of the city of Jerusalem, capital of the State of Israel, we promise in a voice that rings strong and clear:
Never Again! Never Again!
May the memory of the victims be preserved in our hearts forever.
