”Shoah - holokausti - ei ollut luonnonkatastrofi, eikä seurausta sodasta. Shoah perustui poliittiseen päätökseen, jota natsihallinto huolellisesti toteutti”, Israelin suurlähettiläs Dan Ashbel totesi puheessaan Holokaustin uhrien muistopäivän tilaisuudessa Helsingin synagogassa tiistaina 27. tammikuuta.
Tilaisuuden pääpuhuja oli Tasavallan presidentti Sauli Niinistö.
Suurlähettilään puhe kokonaisuudessaan:
Statement by the Ambassador of the State of Israel to Finland, H.E. Mr. Dan Ashbel
At The Holocaust Remembrance event in Helsinki 27th January 2015
Your Excellency, Mr. Sauli Niinistö President of Finland, כבוד הרב Simon Livson, President of the Jewish Community – Mr. Yaron Nadbornik, Mr. Matti Myllykoski Chairman of the Finnish Holocaust Remembrance Association, Excellences, dear colleagues, members of the Jewish community in Finland, ladies and gentlemen,
Allow me, first of all Mr. President to thank you for the important statement you made here today. It is important, especially these days when Jews and Jewish life in Europe are again being threatened, to express a clear position against hatred of Jews
This is also an opportunity to commend and thank MP Ilkka Kanerva, The OSCE Parliamentary Assembly Chairman who said that terrorist attacks on the kosher store in Paris are a clear indication that antisemitism in Europe is rising. He added that the attacks on Jews have increased and that this growing trend must be stopped.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The Stockholm International Forum on the Holocaust, in year 2000, planted the seeds for the 2005 UN Resolution on The International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust. The date chosen was 27th January. On that day, 70 years ago, the death camp of Auschwitz was liberated and the industrial murder of Jews came to an end.
Six decades after the last Jew went up in the smoke of Nazi extermination machine had to pass before the international community of nations openly realized the unique nature of the Shoah. Last week; more than 40 member states of the UN recommitted themselves to the memory of the victims of the Shoah and to the battle against anti- Semitism.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Allow me to draw your attention to the international community's role at the early stages of the SHOAH.
By 1938, some 450,000 of about 900,000 German Jews had fled Germany.
In March 1938, Hitler annexed Austria and made the 200,000 Jews of Austria stateless refugees.
The only crime all these children, men and women have committed was to be born as Jews.
At the initiative of US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a conference was convened in Évian in France in July 1938 to respond to the plight of the increasing numbers of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi persecution in Europe. For eight days, representatives from 32 countries, 39 private organizations and some 24 volunteering organizations discussed the issue.
Golda Meir, later to become Israel´s Foreign Minister and Prime Minister, represented the Jewish Population of British Mandate of Palestine, but was not allowed to speak at the conference.
Hitler responded to the conference by saying
"I can only hope and expect that the other world, which has such deep sympathy for these criminals [Jews], will at least be generous enough to convert this sympathy into practical aid. We, on our part, are ready to put all these criminals at the disposal of these countries, for all I care, even on luxury ships".
The conference proved a failure. The result being that the Jews had no escape and were ultimately subject to Hitler's "Final Solution to the Jewish Question".
If each nation at Evian had agreed to take in 17,000 Jews at once, every Jew in the German Reich could have been saved. Chaim Weizmann, later to become Israel´s first President, was quoted in The Manchester Guardian as saying: "The world seemed to be divided into two parts – those places where the Jews could not live and those where they could not enter."
In her autobiography, Golda Meir described her outrage being in "the ludicrous capacity of the [Jewish] observer from Palestine, not even seated with the delegates, although the refugees under discussion were my own people...."
After the conference Golda Meir told the press: "There is only one thing I hope to see before I die and that is that my people should not need expressions of sympathy anymore."
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen,
This day is dedicated to the memory of 6 million innocent victims of the Jewish people, as well as over 200 thousand Roma and Sinti and thousands of Homosexuals, mentally and physically handicapped people who were murdered because of a sick ideology based on half-truths, libels and straight forward lies.
In 2005 The European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia formulated a working definition of anti-Semitism: “Anti-Semitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews". Rhetorical and physical manifestations of anti-Semitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities”, and they also target the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity.
Anti-Semitism manifests itself with regard to the State of Israel inter alia by denying the Jewish people the right of self-determination or by demands put to Israel, and Israeli institutions that are not expected of any other democratic nation.
This memorial event must be part of a process that educates the young and future generations. It is important to point out the unique nature of anti-Semitism, as well as the unprecedented phenomenon of the Shoah. The Shoah was NOT a nature disaster, nor was it the result of a war. The Shoah was based on a political decision meticulously carried out by the Nazi regime.
The title "Day of Remembrance for the Victims of Persecution", as it appears in official calendars in Finland misses the unique nature of anti-Semitism and the Shoah.
Just these days KEPA, the organizers of the annual World Village Festival in Helsinki, decided to ban a Jewish Zionist NGO – KKL – from participating in this year's festival. KKL or JNF was founded in 1901 in order to purchase land in the Land of Israel. The same organization is today involved in nature preservation, forestation and water management. KKL is an accredited United Nation's NGO.
The main themes of this year's World Village Festival are Africa and the Middle East. The existence of the Jewish state in this region probably does not fit into the organizers' agenda. So KEPA, the organizing body of WVF funded by public Finnish money, chose to accept general unspecified allegations and accusations raised from those who deny Israel's right to exist, and simply decided to get rid of this nuisance.
I wonder which of KEPA's fundamental values: Sustainable development, Environmental protection, Fairness, Tolerance, Equality, Will for peace, Human rights and Democracy were served by this outrageous decision. I would also be interested to know if all other exhibitors and partners of this festival were measured by the same scale.
"The Jewish Community of Helsinki is still welcome to apply to become an exhibitor at the festival and to propose factual program for the festival". KEPA's representative wrote and added "We see Judaism as part of Finnish culture, and even if it would not be, we would still welcome it to the Festival". Simply said, "we're not anti-Semitic, just anti-Zionists and anti-Israel". According to the working definition of anti-Semitism, it's exactly the same.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
To our regret we must admit that the sickness called "anti-Semitism" has not been eradicated. Recent events around Europe have shown that it's alive, kicking and killing people only because they are Jews.
Remember the Evian conference. It actually founded the International Refugee Council but did not have neither the courage nor the will to save the life of even one individual.
As the son of Shoah survivors, who fled Germany and whose families went up in the exterminations' camps smoke, I am grateful to Israel's founders and builders who fulfilled Golda Meir's wish, and established The Jewish People's independent state, the state of Israel.
We, the Jewish people have learnt our lesson from the Shoah. I hope the international community has learnt its lesson and will act accordingly.
Thank you.