We are here today to pay tribute to the millions of innocent victims of the Holocaust and to draw lessons from this dark page of history. I warmly congratulate the Embassy of Israel and the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports and Youth for giving students the opportunity to supplement their knowledge of the Holocaust through the shocking testimony of a survivor of the horrors of the Nazi regime's concentration camps.
Mr. Haelion, I address you with feelings of awe, respect, emotion and immense admiration. I wish to express our deep gratitude to you for accepting the invitation to share with us very traumatic experiences, thus contributing, in the most direct way, to the preservation of the collective memory of the Holocaust. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts for the opportunity you are giving our young people to learn valuable lessons so that such atrocities can be prevented in the future.
By mentally transporting each and every one of us to what the then teenager Mr. Haelion experienced in the concentration camps, we can grasp the magnitude and significance of this heinous crime beyond the numbers. The Holocaust involved the organised, mass extermination of six million Jews and the persecution of many thousands of citizens on the basis of their sexual orientation, disability, beliefs or origin. Behind these numbers, however, lie tragic human stories of children, men and women, who were persecuted, not for committing a crime, but for their identity and their faith.
Through this testimony, we are also given the opportunity to reflect on the circumstances that allowed such mass crimes against innocent citizens to be committed, with the complicity of both those who believed in their rightness and those who were silent or felt powerless to react to the terrible things that were happening. Today we have the opportunity to reflect seriously on the rise of hate speech, especially on social media, and to understand how timely and useful the teaching of the Holocaust is.
Here lies the importance of education, the primary goal of which is to give students the necessary skills to build tomorrow's society, their own tomorrow, on the basis of solidarity and respect for diversity. Our young people must develop critical thinking, a sense of social responsibility and an understanding of the need to participate in the political and social life of their country, emphasising universal principles and values, human rights, democracy and the rule of law.
Dear students,
You are the citizens and leaders of tomorrow. By keeping the memory of the Holocaust alive and learning the lessons of this tragic period of history, you will be able to protect society and create a better world than the one we live in today. Condemn at every opportunity anti-Semitism, blind bigotry and all forms of racism, discrimination and intolerance. Be constantly informed and vigilant so that you never again allow similar crimes to be repeated, thus doing your bit to build and maintain peace in the world.
We need to truly reflect on what kind of society we want and that society, collectively and coherently to secure it, all of us together, led by you, our responsibility and hope for the tomorrow we want and deserve.
(NG/SX)
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