I feel particularly emotional coming here, to a place that has become such a unique symbol of man’s inhumanity. Truthfully, if there has ever been hell on earth, it was right here.
I am here to commemorate the 6 million Jews who were killed by the Nazis. Among them, there were 65,000 Greek Jews who never made it home.
In the words of the great historian Ian Kershaw “the road to Auschwitz was built by hate, but paved with indifference”. Now, 75 years after the liberation of the camp by the Red Army, we must all make a sacred vow, to never forget what happened here.
We must never forget that there is no place for hatred, discrimination and intolerance in our Democracy, which must remain strong and fight against such phenomena with determination.
Some of the Greek Jews who were here, at the camp, and rebelled on October 7th, 1944, in the great uprising that took place in “Crematorium IV”, drew their last breath singing the National Anthem. Others, in their personal testimonies that were salvaged, wrote that they were dying feeling happy, because they knew that their home, their country was already free.
We are here today to honour the memory of those Greek Jews and to make a collective promise that humanity will never again experience such an unspeakable tragedy.
