Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

I think we are coming together here because we have to remember and face the basic facts, that behind the Holocaust this happened. The most effective creation and invention of humanity, the modern state with its laws was used not to protect people, but to exterminate people. The rule of law and a state which shouldn’t be ruled by the law, anti-Semitism is used as a weapon, anything is possible. And if we should learn something, and if we should ask ourselves why it should not happen again, it’s necessary for us to ask, how come that a state is used as a weapon against citizens and minorities?

We are at the second part of this conference, and I salute Mr. Persson, because he took the initiative and has shown his moral courage, I salute him for this initiative. I think the second important theme for this conference is this, we have had the Holocaust, millions of people were killed, millions of Jews were killed, but now we have come to the point of history where many people are dealing in trying to kill the memory of those being killed and when you kill the memory of those being killed you are coming to the extreme extent of the atrocities. Because first you kill people, and then you take away the memory. And I think this conference is necessary to discuss the restitution, the remembrance, the research and the education.

I think any country, should ask itselves what it has to do. So we should try to do our part in Norway. We put the white paper before the parliament and said: We are here to do a historical and moral resettlement, at least for the economic liquidation of the Jews in Norway during the war. Because it is a matter of fact that many of those Jews that were killed, were not brought in by the German occupation forces, but by ordinary Norwegian police. So we have to look back in the mirror and say that to ourselves. So in addition to individual repairations, which are necessary, we have allocated resources to preserve Jewish life, Jewish community life, in Norway and internationally. And we will create a Holocaust institution and I hope we will keep it on-line with Yad Vashem and this institution should also protect the rights of religious minorities. It is necessary for any country to keep a focal point on this. It is necessary 55 years after Auschwitz was liberated. In our efforts to do this, it has been possible for us to draw on the experiences of one of the last Norwegian survivors from Auschwitz, Mr. Julius Paltien, who is present in this assembly.

I would like to put it this way, being the son of a Jewish woman married to a Norwegian, who brought her out of Germany, I must thank those decent Germans who kept the archives of my origins away from the authorities. I will stress it this way because I think in any kind of evil system there are also left some decent people. And if you do not keep up the possibility of the decent people, you will lose, but in the end despite of everything, there will always be some people that are decent. It is necessary to remember that.

Yesterday the Parliament in Norway made its approval to the Norwegian ratification of the International Criminal Court. This is a very important institution to fight injustice and the crimes that were presented during the Holocaust. And let me also add because I understand very well the speech being made by my predecessor, Mr. Haris Siljadic. I have met him before, but possible you do not remember, that does not matter. Because I supported your cause for Bosnia on the reasons you described here and I think it is a shame, it is a European shame that the things we allowed in Croatia, in Bosnia, in Kosovo, that we allowed it to develop for such a long time. Because the Nazis did not use and dared to use the words ethnic cleansing, they called it administrative matters. But in Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo, it was ethnic cleansing. We have come so far perhaps that was why it was necessary to create this conference. And I also stress very importantly that I will do with all my power as a citizen and for the moment the Minister of Justice, to fight right-wing extremism and any connection between that kind of extremism and organized crime. Because I think that is a very actual possibility. I recognize that Swedish authorities are putting efforts to do this through open speech, in education, by being frank and direct. Because to protect democracy you have to fight those people who in the end have a philosophy to exterminate the memory of Holocaust, because they cannot kill the people being killed but they can kill the memory. And then they can try to educate young people to believe that the Jews were on some kind of summer vacation in Poland.

I met a guide in Vienna a few years ago. There was a difference, she said, in Viennese cultural life before and after the Jews disappeared. I do not think the Jews disappeared. So when you use the word disappeared, there is a necessity for education. There is a necessity for this conference, this is the basic truth. And the main point is such as Mr. Haris Silajdic stressed it. Genocides are occuring in many places in the world. I know I speak of those outside Europe. It is our duty because when we speak about a shame in Europe we have to do the necessary things here.

So to conclude my speech I will thank the Swedish government to initiate this conference you have for sometime been criticized to have put things away. It takes a lot of courage to put it up in the light, to look at it and do it. I think that is a decent thing to do. And I think if you forget to do the decent thing, the evil will happen again. And I think personally that democratic institutions are never protected forever. They will only be protected if people are willing to fight for it and to remember how it was possible in 1930 in Germany to make the modern state as a weapon against its citizens. Try to understand that, because it can happen all over again, anywhere, anyplace, as it has been described. So, being the politicians we are, evil must be fought everywhere, it must be brought to justice.

At the end of my speech, I will say I was at Yad Vashem two weeks ago. I think what I learnt there is, I will say it this way, a speaking memory of how it is possible to bring the unbelievable horror of the horror to all the people in a way so that you can understand at least a part of it. And I think that is the task of everybody here to at least understand part of it and so much that we can stop it from happening again. And the main task in my country is how to keep up the memory, do not forget why it happened and to keep up the power of the state against right-wing extremism who try to kill people then threaten people and try to kill the memory of those being dead. The extreme atrocity is to kill the memory of those being dead, we cannot accept that.