ISRAEL. Journée de commémoration des victimes de la Shoah

On behalf of the international community , let me thank the Masuah institute, Shraga Milstein and Aya Ben Naftalay for their initiative and their invitation and their so precious and valuable work in direction of the youth, to allow them to grasp the unbearable essence of the Shoah. The International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which was established by the United Nations General Assembly in November 2005, is a very special and unique moment. A time to remember. A personal and collective journey, a painful and necessary one, toward the unspeakable past. Specially here in Israel, which was created to harbor the jewish people.

66 years after the liberation of the concentration camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau by the Soviet Union troops, memory must be constantly maintained and revived. Like that flame that all officials who are visiting Yad Vashem rekindle. The flame is there and is not extinguished. But if we do not revive it, we could end up, little by little, not seeing it anymore.

“Remember. Do not forget” “Lizkor. Ve lo Lishkoach”.

We must therefore constantly rekindle the flame of memory. To keep alive the six million jews, six millions martyrs of the Shoah, six millions lives, destinies, faces, names and dreams, each of one different, united in the same tragedy. To prevent such atrocities from ever happening again. It is our duty.

The flame of memory must also be a clear warning. To all tempted to take the path of a dangerous trivialization. To anyone tempted to deny the obvious in their speeches. To those who dare denying the horror. Even words, speeches can be intolerable, any form of anti-Semitism, of intolerance against races or religions. They shall not be tolerated. They shall be condemned vigorously and fought.

This is our message today, here at Tel Yitzhak, at the Masuah institute for holocaust studies. This is the message of every man, woman, child gathered today around the world, to commemorate the victims of the Shoah.

As Nobel prize Elie Wiesel said, ‘’ceux qui ne connaissent pas leur histoire s’exposent à ce qu’elle recommence’’. We shall remember we shall also think about ourselves, our history, our actions as States and Nations. The duty of memory is also a need for introspection.

As a French man, I have to live with France darkest hours of its history, which are an insult to its values, its past and its traditions. I have to live with The Vel’ d’Hiv Roundup, on June 16th 1942, a shameful wound. I have to live with the fact that Vichy, Petain, Laval were not mere accidents and that unbearable crimes were committed in the name of my country, France. But there is also another France. A France that declared war against the nazi regime as soon as September 1939. A France that resisted. Let’s just name a righteous village, Le Chambon-sur-Lignon or an organization, the OSE (l’Oeuvre de secours aux enfants - Society for Rescuing Children).

Lest’s also pay tribute here to the 21. 000 "Righteous Among the Nations", those who risked their lives, and their family lives to save many lives. They were modest heroes, farmers, employees, neighbors who took action.

From the depths of the horror and of the unspeakable, a message of hope towards the future was born. Memory and hope should remain our guidelines.

Thus, the blood of the Shoah can become, in the words of Samuel Pisar, one of the youngest survivors of the Holocaust, at the age of 16, "the blood of Hope" (Pisar’s memoir, Of Blood and Hope).