On the morning of 27 January 1945 the Auschwitz-Birkenau camps still held some 7,000 prisoners. Over a million people deported to Auschwitz perished there. It is estimated that six million Jews were exterminated in the death camps.

The Council of Europe was the moving spirit behind the introduction of a Day of Holocaust Remembrance and Prevention of Crimes against Humanity. Education ministers from member states took the decision in October 2002. While Germany and France have chosen 27 January, the day when Auschwitz was liberated, Holocaust Day varies in other countries according to the respective historical experience.

The Council of Europe also helps teachers with their Holocaust Remembrance Day preparations by making available teaching material for raising pupil awareness of those dark times and exploring the topics of genocide and crimes against humanity so as to promote prevention, understanding, tolerance, and friendship between nations, races and religions.

80º aniversario de la liberación del campo de concentración de Auschwitz

Discurso del secretario general del Consejo de Europa, Alain Berset

Inauguración del Jardín de la Memoria en el lugar de la antigua Sinagoga en el Quai Kléber, Estrasburgo

Deputy Minister to the Prime Minister for Equality between Women and Men and the Fight against Discrimination, Ms Bergé,

Mayor of Strasbourg, Ms Barseghian,

President of the Israelite Consistory of the Bas-Rhin, Mr Dahan,

Chief Rabbi of Strasbourg and the Bas-Rhin, Mr Weill,

Ladies and gentlemen,

The Second World War is embodied in images and in stories, but also in noises:

  • The noise of exploding bombs.
  • The noise of wailing sirens.
  • The noise of trundling tanks.

But when you arrive at Auschwitz, it is silence you hear – a deafening silence.

You try to imagine those final journeys in trains of cattle trucks.

You try to imagine the last words of a child to his father just before they are separated at the entrance to the camp.

You try to imagine the final moments in the gas chamber.

But how can you imagine the inconceivable?

1.1 million people – 960 000 of them Jews ‒ were assassinated in Auschwitz-Birkenau.

How many other millions of lives were destroyed?

We are gathered here today to say, “we have not forgotten you”.

We will never forget you!

This Wall of Names reminds us of the duty we have to them.

  • A duty of remembrance.
  • And a duty to pass on the message to future generations.

The trace on the ground of the former Synagogue invites us to ponder many questions.

It is also a scar on the face of the city.

Strasbourg and Alsace were profoundly marked by this period.

Struthof is a stark reminder of this.

Strasbourg has one of the longest-established Jewish communities in France.

And this is reflected in the long history of Alsace’s Jewish people, harried by so many ordeals but still standing firm.

Ladies and gentlemen,

80 years have passed since 27 January 1945.

The last survivors are gradually leaving us and, with them, it is the living memory of the Holocaust we are losing.

This is why I wanted to be with you on this day of such significance.

This memorial garden is a ray of light in our vision of one of the darkest hours of Europe’s history.

Because we should never forget that these unspeakable crimes were perpetrated in Europe, by Europeans.

The Council of Europe was born from a desire to see to it that the horrors of the Second World War would never occur again.

It was created to try to build a lasting peace in Europe on the foundation stones of human rights, democracy and the rule of law.

This is also something we should never forget.

Ladies and gentlemen,

Elie Wiesel was only an adolescent in 1944, when he was deported with his entire family to Auschwitz, then to Birkenau.

I would like to conclude with the words of this great Nobel Peace Prize winner; in his memoir, entitled Night, he writes: “To forget the dead would be akin to killing them a second time”.

We must never forget!

Let us remember them always.

Secretary General Strasbourg 27 january 2025
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