Speech by Terry Davis, Secretary General of the Council of Europe

Commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the liberation
of Auschwitz-Birkenau

Forecourt of the Palais de l’Europe
Tuesday 25 January 2005

To be checked against delivered speech

The idea of a remembrance stone for all the victims of Auschwitz and the other death camps was first suggested to me by a member of the Russian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly, Mikhail Margelov, and I am very grateful to him for the suggestion. I am also grateful to Peter Schieder for having suggested the wording of the inscription.

I still remember the day when I was first told about what had happened to people in these camps – how thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of men, women and children had been abused and killed in horrifying circumstances. I was 10 years old, and I cried all night. I still find it difficult to control my emotions.

There were people of all nationalities and ethnic origins, all religious beliefs, political commitments and sexual orientation – but above all, the victims were Jews – millions of them – and a new meaning was given to the word Holocaust. This stone is erected in memory of all of them.

But for me, this stone at the entrance of the Council of Europe will have a special importance. Whenever I pass it, I shall remember the words of a German, Martin Niemoller, who wrote:

First they came for the Communists,
and I did not speak up,
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I did not speak up,
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I did not speak up,
because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me,
and by that time there was no one
left to speak up for me.

To speak up is an individual responsibility, but speaking up is more effective if it is done jointly with other people.

That is what the Council of Europe is about.