BRUSSELS—‘’70 years later, anti-Semitism, discrimination and hate speech are again on the rise in Europe,” noted Fderica Mogherini, the EU foreign affairs chief, in a statement on International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
“The best antidote against this madness is knowledge. It is essential that our children learn about the Shoah and visit Auschwitz and other concentration camps, to understand what happened and never let it happen again,’’ she said.
“But it is even more important that Jewish culture remains the integral part of our shared European culture it always has been. The history of our European Union is linked to the history of the Jewish people. The European Union could not exist without the memory of the Shoah, and it could not exist without European Jews.’’
She stressed that remembering Europe’s dark past and translating what we have learned from our experience into our policies is critical to prevent against the rise of anti-Semitism, discrimination and hate speech in Europe.
“The Holocaust and World War Two have defined Europe’s modern history like no other event. Our European Union was founded on the desire to say “never again.” The Nazi regime and its allies tried to destroy Europe’s diversity – by killing Jews, Roma and Sinti, homosexuals, people with disabilities, everyone who did not share the Nazi ideology. After this tragedy, the greatest tragedy in human history, we embraced our diversity and made it the foundation of our Union,” the EU High Representative said in her statement.