The Senate, Main Hall, January 27, 2012

The Address of Přemysl Sobotka, 1st  Vice-President of the Senate of the Parliament of the Czech Republic, on the occasion of The Day of Commemoration in Memory of the Victims of the Holocaust and the Prevention of Crimes Against Humanity

Ladies and gentlemen,
   
I am glad we are all meeting again here today. Like every year, we are here to commemorate the Holocaust victims on one hand and on the other to realize, with bitterness, that those millions of victims of monstrous Nazi regime could, at any time in the future, be followed by their successors, because the hatred, fanaticism and the anti-Semitism have not yet disappeared from the incorrigible mankind.

The General Assembly established the Holocaust Remembrance Day in November 2005. In 2006 I had already been honoured to meet you on the premises of the Senate and commemorate this important day. Ladies and gentlemen, today we are meeting here for the seventh time.

I already claimed at my first appearance on these premises that there was no other possibility left other than stirring up all the good people to actively rise against all forms of evil and demagogy that stand against the basic principles of humanism and democracy, and that even from the smallest demonstrations of seemingly marginal displays of vulgarity and intolerance towards the opinions and lives of others, the evil could grow to incredible dimensions. Therefore we have to keep that on our minds forever.

On January 27, 1945 when the Nazi concentration camp of Auschwitz was liberated and the end of the Hitler regime had been coming to an end, the optimists were convinced that the mankind had learned a lesson from their mistakes – especially those that brought the Nazi to power and than to the outbreak of WWII. Unfortunately this kind of social optimism still does not come true and my statement from January 2006, unfortunately, is still true. This also concerns the anti-Semitism that has constantly been appearing in new forms and has been getting new supporters or passive audience, which again corresponds to the words of conservative British philosopher and politician Edmund Burke from 18th century: „All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.“

In the past years I mentioned the neo-Nazi skinheads several times. Criticizing these bold heads is favoured by various left-wing activists and liberal intellectuals. Nevertheless the same people do not seem to perceive the criticism of religious fanatics, who produce even more evil and manage to present the hatred at public places in the Czech Republic as well as the neo-Nazi do. It is especially strange and shocking in the Western Europe which is thought to be proud to present their democratic systems.

In 2010 I visited Israel at the time when the organized Turkish boat provocation aiming to break the Gaza embargo happened. As you know, Gaza represents the area where Hamas terrorists operate, i.e. the terrorists that shoot missiles to the territory of Israel. The media campaign favouring the provocateurs truly shocked me and reminded me of year 1938, when the Nazi showed greater ability to manipulate the media than the democrats. The first people to feel the consequences of that incident were us in the Central Europe.

Democrats are obliged to be set against all those who take freedom of individuals for granted and being reluctant to this they are even promoting intolerance, hatred and lies as their commandment. Any kind of concession towards these proclamations and manifestations is impossible.

One evidence of the beneficial activity of the Senate is that fact, that in December 2006, as part of our plenary session, we accepted the Declaration denying the doubts about Holocaust. I would like to stress that neither myself nor the Senate accept the topic of the Holocaust or anti-Semitism as some kind of an opportunity to make ourselves visible and look good in front of the TV cameras.

We should bear on our minds, and I again have to repeat myself here, that the current economic struggles, debt crisis, negative prospects, make an ideal breeding ground for demagogues and populists of all kind. The rise in the racially motivated crime and mobilisation of people who do not favour the open democratic society is not a sheer coincidence.

We should not be reluctant to any kind of neo-Munich mentality. Otherwise the commemoration of the Holocaust victims would only become a sheer formality with no real effect…                 

Thank you for listening….

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