Speech at the International Holocaust Memorial Service in the European Parliament

Dear Prime Minister Samaras,

Dear Moshe Kantor,

Dear Ambassador Lauder,

Dear Holocaust Survivors,

Ladies and gentlemen,

It is my humble duty to host the International Holocaust Remembrance Day event in this Yehudi Menuhin Hall here in the European Parliament. A place of European reconciliation and peace. This is the third time I address you as President of the European Parliament and I do so as a German and as a European politician.

Let me thank the European Jewish Congress and all those that have contributed to the organisation of this evening's most important memorial.

Each year that passes there are fewer Holocaust survivors alive to recount first-hand the greatest evil in the history of mankind.

Each year therefore it becomes ever more important to commemorate The Shoah. To pass on the message that hatred and anti-Semitism can deliver unthinkable tragedies.

It is a great honour to have survivors of the Shoah here this evening. My heart goes out to you and your families.

This year, the event touches on three themes: First, the deportation and murder of Hungarian Jews towards the end of war in 1944.

Some 565 thousand Hungarian Jews sent to Auschwitz-Burkenau in less than one year, making up around one in 10 of European Holocaust victims. A tragedy beyond comprehension.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Second, we mark the murder of at least 81% of Greek Jews in the Second World War. It is an honour to have Prime Minister Samaras here this evening.

I know how much his government is doing to combat anti-Semitism. Greece's population have suffered economically and psychologically. I admire the Greek people for their tenacity in dealing with huge sacrifices.

It is unfortunately not possible for me to tell you that the demons of the past have definitively been banished. I deeply regret this.

Nationalist, populist and extremist parties are gaining ground, even winning elections, in the European Union. An MP in Budapest calls for Jews to be registered on lists as threats to national security. University professors are being told "Jews, the university is ours, not yours". In Greece, a party openly embraces Nazi ideology through its imagery and its criminal actions.

So no, the demons of the past have certainly not been laid to rest, and we European institutions have a special responsibility to raise awareness of this and fight against it.

Because we are here as a result of the catastrophic first half of the twentieth century,

Because we are an answer to those dreadful experiences, to the absence of respect for basic human rights and fundamental democratic standards.

Both at EU and national levels, we need robust responses to combat anti-Semitism in all its guises, be it on the way to school, on the internet, in the media or in political life.

Thirdly, we see the danger of spreading false propaganda.

The lies used to hide Nazi evil in Theresienstadt Camp in the Czech Republic. Attempting to hide evil acts only makes it worse.

Ladies and gentlemen

We have also just marked the 75th anniversary of Kristallnacht.

The cold and stark statistics speak for themselves: From 9 to 10 November 1938, Nazi storm troopers throughout Germany and parts of Austria smashed up Jewish homes, broke windows of Jewish-owned stores and looted merchandise, set fire to synagogues, randomly attacked Jewish men, women and children and arrested thousands of men.

When the violence ended, at least 96 Jews were dead, 1,300 synagogues and 7,500 businesses destroyed and countless Jewish cemeteries and schools vandalised. A total of 30,000 Jews were rounded up and sent to concentration camps.

What made Kristallnacht so significant was, for the first time, the German public was directly confronted on a nationwide scale with the full savagery of the attack on the Jews. Yet the Nazi massacres only intensified from that moment on leading to the unthinkable policies of the Final Solution.

Dear friends,

Let me say it clearly: anti-Semitism and racism are a threat to our basic values - those of democracy and respect for diversity and human rights.

Holding a memorial ceremony such as ours cannot undo the atrocities that happened to so many families: but it can serve as a warning, it can serve as a tribute and it can serve as a lesson.

Ladies and gentlemen,

The Shoah was the worst tragedy of humankind. Yet, the dangers and demons are regrettably still present in our societies.

This evening we remember the victims, we pay tribute to the "righteous among the nations" and we say: Never Again!