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	Participants Countries and organizations Conference documentation Conference programme				Speech by Professor Israel Gutman Message by the President of the Government of the Republic of Macedonia, Ljubco Georgievski Message by the Co-Chairman of the Council of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Haris Siljadzic Message by the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Walter Schwimmer Message by the Minister of Justice of Norway, Odd Einar Dörum Speech by Professor Ian Hancock Speech by Professor Jerzy Einhorn Speech by the Minister of State at the Federal Chancellery of Germany, Michael Naumann Speech by Professor Israel Gutman Gutman, Israel Speech at the Closing Plenary Session Your excellencies, dear colleagues and friends, On behalf of my Israeli colleagues, I take the privilege to express our gratitude for your creative initiative and for your hospitality, excellent preparations and attention during this great conference. For the first time since the end of World War II and the Holocaust, fifty-five years ago, we are witness to a world gathering composed of distinguished heads of states, survivors, scholars and educators, taking place in the heart of Europe. The core of crime of the brutal war and the Holocaust derived from two decisive motives: the territorial expansive force rooted in modern German history and the racial extreme antisemitic vision and hatred. We used to define the Holocaust as an historical event or a deep crisis of western civilization. However, the Holocaust is a phenomenon beyond history. The history of humankind is a subject of human experience, human development and interpretation of human actions in various epochs. We know that the nature of an average individual is far from being perfect and contains a mixture of inclinations to goodness and evil. A similar structure of trends and impulses has been found in the behavior and operative steps of collective societies and leading political bodies. Wars, slavery, ethnic genocidal conflicts, ghettos, concentration camps and gulags are still undeniable and real aspects of the past. Fascism, Bolshevism and National-Socialism arose as revolutionary anti-liberal and anti-democratic ideologies in an historical junction of modernization, world war and economic depression. In spite of a strong conflicting rivalry and essential ideological contrast (Fascism and National-Socialism are primarily nationalistic movements and Bolshevism purporting to be the outcome of internationalism and equality) one perceives common utopic theories and methods of the totalitarian regimes. The absolute rule was conducted by a political elite which by means of terror and fanaticism subordinated the individual freedom to the system and goal of the states. The totalitarian states were an arena of cruelty and crime, whereas National-Socialism planned the total and unconditional extermination of an entire people as a necessary act for redemption. The National-Socialists refused to acknowledge the elementary religious virtue of a human being created in the image of God and the principal ethical basis of our civilization. The Holocaust constituted an extraordinary and absolute evil. The uniqueness of the Holocaust was in essence an act of self destruction of mankind. Immediately after the war many Jews and non-Jews alike argued that the Holocaust was possible because Jews, a minority in the Diaspora, were not only helpless and abandoned, but rather a passive and submissive element of society. At the same time first efforts were made to explore the huge body of captured German documentation. The works of Gerald Reitlinger, Leon Poliakov and Raul Hilberg have attempted to reconstruct the process of the “Final Solution” demonstrating clearly that the murder of Jews was not an incidental act of extreme Nazis. Moreover, their studies document that the Holcaust was a precisely planned action in occupied and non-independent Europe, one of the principal aims of the regime, and an intrinsic part of the war operation. Well known German scholar Andreas Hillgruber emphasized the ease (leichtigkeit) with which, in the midst of the twentieth century, massive numbers of people were mobilized and manipulated to carry out this incredible bestial crime. German philosopher Karl Jaspers, describing his feelings in 1945, remarked: ²We did not go into the streets when our Jewish friends were led away, we did not scream until we ourselves began to suffer.² Another aspect of the Holocaust which, according to Pope John Paul II, ²remains an indelible stain on the history of the [passing] century², is antisemitism. Many times we have dealt with the crucial question whether the Holocaust is simply a peak of anti-Jewish hatred. Today we are inclined to assume that German-Nazi policy and murder of the Jews cannot simply be defined as an extension or a most severe form of religious, economic or even political and racial antisemitism. Antisemitism in all its extreme forms strives to convert Jews or discriminate against them. The Nazi transformation of anti-Jewishness was a basic ingredient of an ideology which rejected the Jews’ right to live. However, we may ask whether the prejudices and hatred, so deeply rooted in the mentality and culture of the European people, did not help the Nazis to transform Jews into targets and victims. Moreover, in addition to the Nazis and many active collaborators in various countries, almost the entire free and democratic Europe between the wars was paralyzed in the face of anti-Jewish policy of the Third Reich. Until the outbreak of the war the systematic persecution of the Jewish citizens and the racial anti-Jewish laws were qualified as an internal German issue. In mid-1938, during the days of the Evian Conference initiated by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt for the urgent purpose to search for an alternative shelter for the refugees from the Third Reich, the representative from Australia declared that his country is free of antisemitism and is not interested in importing the blow from outside. The Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann said that in those days the world was divided into two kinds of countries: countries that want to be rid of Jews and the those that refuse to accept them. During the first years of the massacre the free world remained silent, and even later in time with the implementation of the “Final Solution” nothing was really done to help and save the Jewish victims. The Danish rescue operation in October 1943 and the opening of Sweden’s gates were an exceptional event of dignity and courage. Today some scholars are constantly absorbed with the tendency or need to explain the Holocaust, the most irrational tragedy, in apparently rational terms. Fruitless discussions focus on whether Hitler personally signed the order of total annihilation, whether it was a written or oral order, when exactly and in what circumstances the order was given. Other scholars tried to integrate the Holocaust within the vast projects in the field of engineering, i.e. physical liquidation of people as a result of food shortages, the lack of productive efficiency on the part of the Jewish worker, removal of ethnic groups as a result of planned shifting of masses of European population, etc. All the conceptions contributed in some degree to understanding a series of particular, often minor, and marginal events. However, the extent, the dimensions and the efforts of the killers to put their hands on each child in hiding proved that it was mainly a fanatical ideological undertaking conducted by the administration and war machine in a hostile atmosphere and war conditions. The new generation encountered and learned about the Holocaust from the enormous scope of diaries, memories, literature and arts. The ongoing research is not the main source of knowledge and impression, but the works of Primo Levi, Tadeusz Borowski, Elie Wiesel and many other writers and survivors which portray families and individuals confronted with the monstrous tragedy. The growing interest in the subject and the extensive search for knowledge are encompassing the young and old everywhere. All ranks of learning and studying about the Holocaust have become a component of our culture and awareness. Auschwitz has become a symbol of human downfall, as well as a warning and lesson for the future. At the same time the Holocaust has influenced the attitude toward genocidal crimes in the past and has served as a call for tolerance and concern in the presence of current conflicts and events of bloodshed as well as being a barrier against attempts to renew extreme and dangerous ideologies and movements. The important role of Holocaust memory and education must be emphasized to remember the past and to warn and prepare humanity for the future. Francois Mauriac wrote in 1945: “We did not need a Hitler and the Nazis to tell us that man was not born innocent, that evil is in his blood and nature. But a hero and a saint still exist in embryo in the most secret places of our poor hearts.” >> Back to top				Introduction Opening Session: Messages and speeches Plenary Sessions: Messages and speeches Plenary Session 1 Plenary Session 2 Reception at the Stockholm City Hall Written Messages Workshops, Panels and Seminars Closing Session and Declaration Other Activities
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