Exhibition
While the European Parliament has addressed Holocaust remembrance from a political perspective, the institution’s chamber has also acted as a platform for spokespeople and activists on Holocaust education and awareness, as well as for expressing Parliament’s standpoints.
International Holocaust Remembrance Day is observed on 27 January each year, the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. The Day commemorates the murder of approximately six million Jewish victims and the millions of other victims of Nazi persecution. Numerous memorial events have been held throughout the years in the European Parliament and its Presidents have represented European citizens at commemorative events across the EU and paid visits to Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem.
As we stand here, the very thought of Auschwitz sends a shiver through our souls. And it always will. Reconciliation takes on a concrete shape in our work towards European integration. The European Union is guarantor of the pledge: "Never again."
President Jerzy Buzek, 70th anniversary of the arrival of the first Polish prisoners to the Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp.
While Parliament has been involved in Holocaust remembrance in several ways since the 1990s, in 2012 President Martin Schulz formalised Parliament’s remembrance activities. He declared that Parliament would commemorate the Holocaust on the anniversary of the Wannsee Conference, where high-ranking Nazis had decided on the ‘Final Solution’ for the Jews in Europe. From 2012 to 2018, annual events were held in conjunction with the European Jewish Congress, attended by Holocaust survivors, EU leaders, Members of the European Parliament, Ambassadors, and representatives from Jewish and non-Jewish organisations.
We are historically here as an answer to the first half of the 20th century. Because the experiences of the Europeans, the experience of the Holocaust showed ... to which point people are prepared to go. Evil still exists every day, every moment. And therefore we have to be visible and prudent every day and every moment. Mutual respect, respect for individual rights, respect for the right of everybody to be treated decently, to be respected as an individual — wherever they come from, whatever their political tendencies, whatever their religion.
President Martin Schulz, 2013
Since 2019, formal ceremonies have been held during the plenary session of the European Parliament to commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Here, speakers – usually Holocaust survivors and their families – share their stories with Members of the European Parliament, and with European citizens.
Each survivor who has addressed Parliament has had a unique experience of the Holocaust. Yet common themes still thread their messages together: concerns about rising antisemitism in Europe, the duty of Europeans to act in full awareness of their past, and for MEPs and citizens alike to fight discrimination whenever they see it.
As time passes, the community of living survivors is shrinking. In the weeks before this exhibition opened, two of the people whose stories we share here passed away: Walter Frankenstein and Margot Friedländer. Just 245,000 were still estimated to be alive worldwide in 2024, most of them were children during the war. Listening, sharing and preserving their memories continues to be of utmost importance.
President of Israel Isaac Herzog, who spoke at the 2023 ceremony, summed up the purpose of the day — and the Parliament — as follows:
'As we stand here today in the beating heart of the European Union, we understand very well the mission of memory that we all share. We recognise the fact that at the memorial site to which we make pilgrimage, we must remember not only the Holocaust and the destruction, but also the sacred alliance forged alongside this horrific disaster.
We need to sanctify the memory of the victims.
We need to ensure the welfare of the survivors who are still amongst us.
We need to teach and educate about the lessons of the historic catastrophe that was the Holocaust, and we need to prevent any repetition of these ghastly crimes.'