Concept international project
of the
European Day of
Tolerance Third World Holocaust Forum – to commemorate 70 years since die Kristallnacht
Brussels (Belgium)
November 10, 2008
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Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
Lluнs Maria de Puig, PACE President
Jan Figeľ, European Union Commissioner for Education, Training, Culture and Youth
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Event description: Date: November 10, 2008 Venue: the Atomium (Brussels Expo), Brussels Key speakers: Lluis Maria de Puig, PACE President, Aleksander Kwasniewski, former president of Poland, Moshe Kantor, President of the European Jewish Congress, President of the World Holocaust Forum Foundation Participants and Guests: heads of state, heads of government, special invitees, representatives of NGOs and Jewish communities from all over Europe, university and high school students, Holocaust survivors
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Event description: Tentative programme: Duration: 1.5 – 2 hours. Introductory remarks: Moshe Kantor Short presentation by Lluis Maria De Puig, PACE President Speeches by heads of state, heads of government Presentation by Aleksander Kwasniewski of the European Convention of Tolerance and the new forum on Tolerance
День
толерантности
концепция Международного проекта
в Европе
World
Holocaust Forums
2005-2006
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The first “Let My People Live!� World Forum was held in Krakow, Poland, in January 2005 to mark 60 years since the liberation of the German Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. The forum was widely supported by leading international organisations, including the Council of Europe and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, as well as top-tier politicians throughout the world. Representatives of 40 countries, including 24 official delegations, led by their heads of state and government, took part in the forum. The first forum was attended, among other high-ranking officials, by President of Germany Horst Kohler, President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin, President of the Republic of Poland Aleksander Kwasniewski, President of the State of Israel Moshe Katsav and Vice President of the United States of America Richard Cheney.
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First World Forum
“Let My People Live!” January 27, 2005, Krakow
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First World Forum
“Let My People Live!” January 27, 2005, Krakow
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The second “Let My People Live!” World Forum to commemorate 65 years since the Babi Yar tragedy was held in Kiev, Ukraine, in September 2006. It was organised by the Government of Ukraine, the World Holocaust Forum Foundation and Yad Vashem – the Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority. More than 1,000 people from sixty countries took part in the forum, among them heads of state and government of 46 countries, members of international political, public and religious organisations, including the Council of Europe, European Union, United Nations, World Jewish Congress, European Jewish Congress, European Jewish Fund, American Jewish Congress, as well as prominent politicians, guests of honour, scientists, artists, witnesses to the tragedy, liberators of Kiev and representatives of youth organisations. More than 500 accredited journalists provided media coverage on the forum and other events marking 65 years since the Babi Yar tragedy. The forum’s participants adopted the World Holocaust Forum Declaration, welcoming efforts to preserve the memory of victims of World War II, the Holocaust and its lessons for future generations and an initiative to organise the next forum in the series in 2008 to commemorate 70 years since die Kristallnacht.
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Second World Forum
“Let My People Live!” September 27, 2006, Kiev
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Second World Forum
“Let My People Live!” September 27, 2006, Kiev
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Second World Forum
“Let My People Live!” September 27, 2006, Kiev
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First World Forum
“Let My People Live!” January 27, 2005, Krakow
Historical background:
What preceded the events of die Kristallnacht
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Among other reasons, the Nazi’s rise to power in Germany was possible due to country’s defeat in WWI and the victors’ crushing of the German spirit. Nazi rule brought misfortune and suffering upon the German nation and the whole continent. Their ideology was founded on hatred, aggression, destruction and death.
Julius Streicher, one of the most odious Nazi leaders who consistently supported the idea of total extermination of Jews (centre), with Hermann Goering and Joseph Goebbels
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The ideology of those people – the Nazi ideology – was based on criteria defining superior and inferior races and nations. The 1935 Nazi convention in Nuremberg adopted race laws for the Reich known as the Nuremberg Laws. These laws actually outlawed Jews and people of certain other ethnicities living in Germany, depriving them of Reich citizenship. The new laws defined superiority and qualified various nations as legitimate or illegitimate. The Nazis defined the Jews as useless, worthless and having an adverse effect on the German people. Jews were to be exterminated.
Instructions for assessing “race value”, used in the Nazi Germany to illustrate the Nuremberg Laws of 1935
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It went beyond imagination that in the 20th century, an era of technical, scientific and humanitarian progress, a state in the very heart of Europe would make a huge leap into the past, that the new German Fuhrer and his clique would drag the country into an epoch of barbarity. It was still more unbelievable that other “civilised� nations in Europe and around the world maintained relations and cooperated with these barbarians. They turned a blind eye to the inhumane crimes, which first seemed minor and harmless, only to grow more farreaching, disastrous and bloody. Eventually, the crimes became so monstrous that the civilised world simply refused to believe they were true. Signing the Munich Agreement, September 30, 1938
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The Story of the St. Louis Nothing happens in one moment. Hitler could not switch on the death conveyors for Jews and many other ethnicities in Dachau, Treblinka, Buchenwald and Auschwitz without some preparation. He could not simply declare Jews an outlaw nation worthy only of immediate extermination. There had to be an official explanation. Everything else would evolve as a consequence. Hitler needed a public pretext. In Germany, propaganda and provocations were slowly but steadily turning people against Abraham’s descendants, but something of a larger scale would be required for the rest of the world. Something bigger did happen. The “civilised world” helped Hitler willingly, as is demonstrated by the story of the St. Louis ocean liner, whose passengers tried to escape the horrors of the Third Reich. This story is absolute proof that the indifference and idleness of a world reluctant to deal with the problems of others can open the door to evil and eventually present us all with the same problem.
St. Louis in the port of Hamburg
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The Story of the St. Louis On Saturday, May 13, 1939, the Trans-Atlantic liner St. Louis left Hamburg, its port of origin. The majority of its 937 passengers had obtained tourist visas. In reality, everything was much more complicated. The passengers were Jews fleeing from the Reich, where they would be exiled or killed or deprived of their property. None of them intended to return to Germany soon. It is common knowledge that neither Cuban, U.S. nor Canadian authorities allowed most of the St. Lewis passengers to land in their countries. After covering 10,000 miles, the St. Louis arrived in Antwerp, only 300 miles from its port of departure. The passengers who went ashore in Belgium were put on a train with the doors locked and windows nailed shut to “ensure their own security.” Those who landed in Holland were immediately sent to a refugee camp.
The passengers accepted by the United Kingdom disembarked in Southampton on Wednesday, June 21. Their wandering had lasted forty days and nights. They were lucky that the United Kingdom was the only country free from Nazi occupation once WWII began. When WWII broke out and Germany occupied most European countries, all the continent’s population was “in the same boat.” The circle closed. Other people’s misfortune turned out to be a common misfortune shared by all.
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Significance of the Forum On the one hand, die Kristallnacht was the culmination of ideological and legal efforts by the Nazi leaders to create a Judenfrei Germany. On the other hand, it was the beginning of the road to hell that brought death, not only to millions of Jews and non-Jews, but also to the German people. By fostering anti-Semitism, Hitler succeeded in gaining power over the German nation. Germans became accustomed to the idea that Germany’s future lay in the Fuhrer’s hands. According to Cardinal Christoph Schonborn (the Archbishop of Vienna), “die Kristallnacht threw Germans into a bottomless abyss of human guilt.” The main message of the Forum’s organisers is to make the global community understand that the countries of Europe and the rest of the world are, to a certain extent, responsible for Hitler’s crimes. While Hitler organised the extermination of Jews and other “racially inferior” citizens, European leaders and nations remained indifferent to Nazi policy and did not hinder it, thus allowing Hitler to commit his crimes.
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Importance of the third World Holocaust Forum The forum will demonstrate the importance of die Kristallnacht as the precursor to the active stage of the Holocaust, marking a final transition from popular anti-Semitism to the implementation of the Judenfrei Germany concept; as the first link in the chain that led to the colossal massacre of World War II. Die Kristallnacht encouraged the Nazis to continue their atrocities against Jews (and non-Jews), including the Babi Yar tragedy and the concentration camps in Buchenwald, Dachau, Treblinka and other death sites. Die Kristallnacht was the beginning of the road to hell. Babi Yar was the next step on this road – executions of Jews became mass murders, claiming tens of thousands of lives. This road brought the world to Auschwitz, the apotheosis of senseless extermination of millions of people. This idea may be expressed as “Triangle of Dates and Events” concept. (see next page)
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Gates of the AuschwitzBirkenau Memorial
Babi Yar Memorial
Synagogue in Nuremberg, burned on the night of November 9-10, 1938
Triangle of Dates and Events
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Shamefully, Nazi ideas are still alive and being supported. To understand the events underlying die Kristallnacht, we must remember that world governments and nations failed to recognize the mortal danger in 1938. The Nazis’ barbaric acts and Hitler’s state-level genocide of Jews did not keep civilised Europe from developing relations, concluding treaties and forming political and military alliances with Germany. In fact, Jews were “a touchstone” for Nazi leaders. When the global community and governments ignored the persecution and initial extermination of Jews, that signalled to Hitler and his entourage that they could continue doing whatever they wanted… We know the outcome: World War II was the most unprecedented massacre in human history, involving nearly half of the countries in the world. The war brought terrible destruction on hundreds of European towns, enormous damage to the economies of many countries and many cultures, and killed tens of millions of soldiers and civilians. And, strange as it may seem, this horrific blow to western civilisation came from its own heart. Civilisation struck itself.
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Today, Nazism is a reality rather than a myth. There are more than 1,000 neoNazi and extreme right organisations operating in Europe with several million members
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A key message of the forum is to draw a parallel between the danger posed by the Nazis in the 1930s and the existing nuclear threat. The past century’s Holocaust can recur in the 21st century, but on a new, global level. It will have no ethnic, religious or state borders. The global community underestimates the nuclear threat and does not believe it is real. The acute nature of the threat is proved by the actions of so-called threshold countries, primarily Iran and its leaders, who are implementing its nuclear programme and may be helping terrorists acquire nuclear materials. Similarly, the world did not recognize the danger when the Nazis came to power in Germany. It paid a high price for its blindness.
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A fundamentally new understanding of the events:
We must prevent the same mistake in the future!
Hitler’s crimes are not the responsibility of Germany alone.
We must not ignore the threat of a nuclear holocaust or consider it unlikely. We must act now.
Everyone’s indifference encouraged the Nazis to commit their crimes with impunity.
Mankind should be tolerant to tolerance and intolerant to intolerance
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The forum will emphasise the global importance of fighting xenophobia and its acutest form, anti-Semitism. It will also attract the attention of the international community and political leaders to the need to confront the recent escalation of anti-Semitism and xenophobia in Europe and all over the world, as well as the potential consequences of failing to do so, by using the example of die Kristallnacht and its aftermath.
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The Forum provides an opportunity for VIP participants to hold bilateral and multilateral meetings. It is the perfect platform for top-tier political discussions.
Lluнs Maria de Puig
Hans-Hert .. Pottering
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Third World Forum “Let My People Live!� to commemorate the 70-th Anniversary of die Kristallnacht in Germany (Draft of the hall decoration design). November 2008, Brussels