"Glöm oss inte. Berätta vår historia...."

Premiärminister Netanyahus tal vid Förintelsens

Martyrers och Hjältars Minnesdag 2010:

Tonight, the eve of Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes'

Remembrance Day, we remember our brothers and

sisters who were murdered in the death camps, in

the forests and in the killing fields. We listen to the

voices of the survivors who serve as the voice of the

millions who died.

Before their deaths, many of the murdered begged,

"Do not forget us. Tell our story - tell the

world, tell the coming generations - how

great our suffering was, how terrible the

horror was, how great our sacrifice was."
We are deeply indebted to the survivors for their

courage to return to life, to establish families, to

contribute to building the country, and for their

courage to speak out and tell their stories.

It is only during the past several years that we

have been doing more to help and make things

easier for the survivors in their twilight years,

and we will continue to do so.

**
Distinguished guests, several months ago, I headed

the Israeli delegation to the ceremony marking 65

years since the liberation of the death camps

Auschwitz and Birkenau. The candle-lighting

ceremony took place outside in front of the

monument. It was 15 degrees celsius below zero,

but it was still warmer than the terrible winter

of 1944-1945 when temperatures ranged from

30 to 35 degrees below zero. We stood for about

30 minutes during the ceremony, well-dressed

for the weather. Nevertheless, we were freezing.

Suddenly I understood a simple, chilling truth about

millions of my brothers and sisters who ended up in

that cursed place: those who didn't burn, froze;

and those who didn't freeze, burned.

**

Several months earlier, I visited the Wannsee Villa

in Berlin. There, I saw the original invitation for the

meeting of high-level Nazi officials, in which they

decided to wipe out the Jewish people.

On the invitation that was sent by the Deputy Head

of the SS was written:

"The chief of the Reich main security office, Reinhard

Heydrich, cordially invites you to a discussion about

the Final Solution to the Jewish problem. Breakfast

will be served at 09:00."
This is how, in an elegant villa on the shore of a pastoral

lake, over breakfast and glasses of cognac, 15 men sat

and decided how to destroy our people.

No one batted an eyelid; no one expressed any doubt

regarding the mission, either its necessity or its justness.

Immediately after the meal, they began their work

to erase the seed of Abraham from the Earth.
as I was walking through the villa, moving from

document to document, I was filled with a helpless

rage, and the feeling continued to grow until it

became a flood.

**

At the end of the tour, my German host asked me

to write something in the guest book. I sat in the

chair and the sadness and the anger rose up and

started to overflow. And because of the storm of

emotions, I wrote only three words:

Am Israel Chai [the People of Israel live].

**
Tonight at Mount Herzl, I say those words again:

Am Israel Chai. And the people of Israel will continue

to live.

It re-established its country, gathered its exiles,

built its army, settled its homeland and reunited

its capital, Jerusalem.

"The Land of Israel was the birthplace of the
Jewish people."
That is how David Ben-Gurion opened the Declaration
of Independence. The State of Israel was born out of
the ruins and the ashes, and today it impresses the
entire world with the force of its creativity and
innovation, with its advanced research and knowledge,
with the momentum of its economy and with its free
and democratic society.
***
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