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Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's Address at the Opening Ceremony of the Holocaust Martyrs & Heroes Remembrance Day / Translation |
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| 18/04/2004 |
Distinguished Guests,
Sixty years ago the fate of Nazi Germany was determined. Its total defeat was already in sight. The salvation of humanity broke forth as if it were at the end of a last night watch.
However, even in its final death throes, while its armies were defeated and retreating on all fronts, the monster would not let go of its prey. Even when it was cast down with crushed limbs, beaten on every side it did not let go of its lust for Jewish blood. With its remaining strength, until the very end, it sought to destroy the last Jew. Its lines were breached, its army was repelled, its cities were destroyed, all its systems were disrupted, and only one apparatus remained intact, precise and efficient to the very end: the mechanism to destroy the Jews.
Apparently, the cursed Nazis knew and felt in the depth of their consciousness that the Jewish people embodied, through the Law of G-d, Ethics of the Prophets and the Bible, the total, polar and complete opposite of the racial and evil doctrine of the Third Reich. The Jewish values, the vision of peace, the sanctity of man, for he was created in G-d's image.
The Ten Commandments constitute the cornerstones of human civilization, liberty, equality, progress and the essence of life. It is these that Hitler and his worshippers conspired to ruin, to uproot, to destroy and to dry up, in order to inflict on the human race a primal age of darkness, in which the supreme race, as it were, rules over all human beings.
The Nazis realized that as long as there are Jews on the face of the earth, as long as there is one Jew who keeps his faith and Jerusalem as a guiding light, the Reich would not stand firm, and it would fall. And in this day and age, like in ancient times, the Nazi oppressor devised to destroy, kill, and exterminate all Jews, young and old, women and children, and so it fell and will be forever an abomination.
The defeat of Nazi Germany by the Allied Forces constituted a victory of the spirit of man, the spirit of Zion and Jerusalem. More than anything else, the establishment of the State of Israel symbolized the victory of light over darkness and the victory of justice and hope. The existence of the State of Israel ensures that our brothers and sisters who were murdered in the Holocaust will forever be remembered. It is our duty to them to remember and commemorate every single one; their names, their photographs, their life stories. We should use all technological means at our disposal, to reach every person around the world, and plant their images in our own hearts, and in the hearts of our children and grandchildren. This is the little we can do for them.
"I was not one of the six million", wrote the poet Yehuda Amichai.
"I was not among them,
but the fire and smoke remained in me,
and the pillars of fire and pillars of smoke light my way night and day..."
The State of Israel does not forget. We know what hatred of Israel caused in the past. We watch with open eyes the beacons of enmity and hostility around us, and we have learned our lesson. We will never permit today's murderers and those of tomorrow to hurt our people. Whoever dares to do so will be struck. We seek peace it is our wish and our dream, but we will not sheath our defending sword.
Israel calls on the Free World to stand with us in the dangerous struggle for the preservation of light and liberty.
We call on every free person to remember, and never forget.
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