Brussels, 13/01/2015 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 13 January, the European Parliament commemorated the 70th anniversary of the liberation by Soviet troops of the Auschwitz concentration camp.
Over one million people - Jews, Roma, homosexuals, sick and disabled people, prisoners of war, children, “declared sub-human by Nazi ideologists” - were “murdered in that camp. Through hunger, disease, torture, execution, appalling medical experiments and the killing system of the gas chambers”, said European Parliament President Martin Schulz in a solemn declaration before the plenary session in Strasbourg.
German Social Democrat Schulz said that Auschwitz had not been the only extermination camp but the Nazi policy of organised mass murder was centred on it. For this reason, “it will always be a cry of desperation and warning to humanity”. Schulz added: “We all share a collective responsibility to ensure that this never happens again”. Human dignity, he said, must be “inviolable for us”; we must not respond to hate with hate, “we have to resist the growing level of mistrust”. Seventy years on from the liberation of Auschwitz, “Jews in Europe still fear for their safety. That is something that must frighten us and we need to resist that fear”, said Schulz referring to the tragic events that shook France last week.
Matteo Renzi, president of the Italian Council, spoke of the commitment of the people of Italy to resist this “terrible abomination”. (LC/MB)