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THE SEVENTY YEARS DECLARATION



This declaration based on a text authored by Professors Dovid Katz and Danny Ben-Moshe as an initiative of Professor Katz (Site: defending history) is part of a new campaign to protest against the Prague Declaration of 2008 and against various resolutions of the European Parliament that followed the same principles in 2008 and in subsequent years. These declarations have tried to legally, formally and historically equalize the Nazi's genocidal crimes to the political crimes in communist countries.

The intention was to mischaracterize the crimes of communist regimes in comparing them to the worst crime against humanity. The Prague Declaration campaign has indeed sought to minimize and trivialize the Nazi genocide and undermines the uniqueness of the atrocity of the Holocaust.

The memory of a major event in the history of humanity has been questioned irresponsibly for purely political purposes.

In 2012 a monument was erected in Israel, to the bravery of the Red Army in its campaign against Hitler. Their struggle enabled some European Jews to escape the planned total extermination. The monument comes at the initiative of right as well as left wing leaders because it transcends politics to consider with honesty and without political considerations the debt of the Jewish people rescued by the Red Army. The monument was erected in Beit Yad Labanim, a site that is solemnly dedicated to the fallen soldiers.

Didier Bertin - 8 MARCH 2013


 

The Seventy Years Declaration


on the Anniversary of the Final Solution Conference at Wannsee

 

On this the 70th anniversary of the formal adoption by the Nazi leadership of the “Final Solution of the Jewish Problem” we the undersigned

 

Remember:

  • With humility and sadness, the Final Solution plan which formalised and industrialised the by-then ongoing Holocaust of European Jewry
  • The horror and brutality of the genocidal campaign of total annihilation of European Jewry conducted by the Nazis and their collaborators
  • That the mass killing of European Jewry preceded that formal adoption of the Final Solution plan by half a year, and began on the Eastern Front in 1941 upon the initiation of Operation Barbarossa and the Nazi attack on the Soviet Union
  • That millions of non-Jews suffered in numerous ways under the Nazis and other forms of tyranny in Europe during the Second World War.

 

Recognise:

  • The Nazi campaign of annihilation of the Jewish people was philosophically, qualitatively and practically profoundly distinct and different to other forms of oppression experienced by European people during World War II, such as the horrors of Stalinism also before and after the War
  • Our dismay that the lessons of the Holocaust were not learnt and genocide continues to occur in the international arena
  • The nobility of Jewish partisans who survived ghettos or camps and went on to fight the Nazis and their allies
  • The efforts of European states to acknowledge forthrightly their role in the Holocaust past
  • That discussion about genocide in Europe must be based on the definition of the UN Genocide Convention 1948
  • That antisemitism continues in various forms in Europe and beyond.

 

Reject:

  • Attempts to obfuscate the Holocaust by diminishing its uniqueness and deeming it to be equal, similar or equivalent to Communism as suggested by the 2008 Prague Declaration
  • Equating Nazi and Soviet crimes as this blurs the uniqueness of each and threatens to undermine the important historical lessons drawn from each of these distinct experiences
  • Attempts to have European history school books rewritten to reflect the notion of “Double Genocide” (“equality” or “sameness” of Nazi and Soviet crimes)
  • As unacceptable the glorification of Nazi Allies, and of Holocaust perpetrators and collaborators, including the Waffen SS in Estonia and Latvia, and the Lithuanian Activist Front in Lithuania
  • Attempts to legalise or sanitize the public display of the swastika by racist and fascist groups
  • Efforts to have the Holocaust remembered on one common day with the victims of Communism.

 

Advocate:

  • Distinct days and distinct programs to remember the Holocaust and other victims of other twentieth century totalitarian regimes
  • EU member states continue efforts to acknowledge their own roles in the destruction of European Jewry
  • The need for ongoing genuine Holocaust education and memorialisation across the European Union
  • Opposition to all forms of contemporary racism and discrimination and its manifestation, including antisemitism, contempt for Muslims, hate of Roma, homophobia, and other prejudice and intolerance generated by extremist politics.

 

Signatories of the 70 years declaration

 

UNITED KINGDOM -15 SIGNATORIES                                                                               

EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

 

Linda McAvan, Member of the Group of the progressive alliance of the socialists and democrats

Martin Callanan, President of European conservatives and reformists group    

Andrew Duff,   Member of the Group of the alliance of liberals and democrats for Europe

Stephen Hughes, Vice President of the Group of the progressive alliance of the socialists and democrats

Baroness Sarah Ludford, Vice President of the Group of the alliance of liberals and democrats for Europe

Bill Newton Dunn, Member of the Group of the alliance of liberals and democrats for Europe

Charles Tannock, Member of  the European conservatives and reformists group     

 

BRITISH PARLIAMENT 

Louise Ellman,, Labour, Cooperative

The Baroness Deech D.B.E, House of Lords, Crossbench

Luciana Berger, Labour, Cooperative

Mike Freer, Conservative

Lord Janner of Braunstone, House of Lords, Labour

Denis MacShane, Labour

John Mann, Labour

Matthew Offord, Conservative

 

GERMANY - 19 SIGNATORIES

EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT 

Jo Leinen, Member of the Group of the progressive alliance of the socialists and democrats

Knut Fleckenstein, Member of the Group of the progressive alliance of the socialists and democrats

Jutta Haug, Member of the Group of the progressive alliance of the socialists and democrats

Constanze Krehl, Member of the Group of the progressive alliance of the socialists and democrats

Martin Schulz, Member of the Group of the progressive alliance of the socialists and democrats

Jutta Steinruck, Member of the Group of the progressive alliance of the socialists and democrats

Norbert Neuser, Member of the Group of the progressive alliance of the socialists and democrats

Dagmar Roth-Behrendt, Member of the Group of the progressive alliance of the socialists and democrats

Bernhard Rapkay, Vice Président of the Group of the progressive alliance of the socialists and democrats

Gabriele Zimmer, President of  Confederal group of the European  united left/Nordic green left  

Barbara Weiler, Member of the Group of the progressive alliance of the socialists and democrats


BUNDESTAG

Volker Beck, Die Grünen

Lukrezia Jochimsen, Die Linke

Jan Korte, Die Linke

Christian Lange, SPD

Monika Lazar, Die Grünen

Jerzy Montag, Die Grünen

Petra Pau, Die Linke

Prof. (em.) Gert Weisskirchen, SPD -Member of the Bundestag [1976 – 2009] 

 

HUNGARY -3 SIGNATORIES

EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT 

Kinga Göncz, Member of the Group of the progressive alliance of the socialists and democrats

Zita Gurmai, Member of the Group of the progressive alliance of the socialists and democrats

Edit Herczog, Treasurer of the Group of the progressive alliance of the socialists and democrats


LITHUANIA - 8 signatories

EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT 

Vilija Blinkevičiūtė, Member of the Group of the progressive alliance of the socialists and democrats

Justas Paleckis, Member of the Group of the progressive alliance of the socialists and democrats


SEIMAS

Vytenis Povilas Andriukaitis, Social Democrat Party

Marija Aušrinė Pavilionienė, Social Democrat Party

Birutė Vėsaitė, Social Democrat Party

Algirdas Sysas, Social Democrat Party

Julius Sabatauskas, Social Democrat Party

Justinas Karosas, Social Democrat Party - DCD le 6 Juin 2012 

 

LATVIA - 4 SIGNATORIES

EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT 

Alexander Mirsky, Member of the Group of the progressive alliance of the socialists and democrats

Tatjana Ždanoka, Membre of the Group of the green/European free alliance

 

SAEIMA

Boriss Cilevičs, Harmony Center Party

Sergejs Dolgopolovs, Harmony Center Party

 

AUSTRIA - 3 SIGNATORIES

EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT 

Hannes Swoboda, President of the Group of the progressive alliance of the socialists and democrats

Karin Kadenbach, Member of the Group of the progressive alliance of the socialists and democrats

Jörg Leichtfried, Member of the Group of the progressive alliance of the socialists and democrats


BELGIUM -2 SIGNATORIES

EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

Louis Michel, Member of the bureau of the Group of the alliance of liberals and democrats for Europe

Frédérique Ries, Member of the Group of the alliance of liberals and democrats for Europe

 

ITALY - 4  SIGNATORIES

EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT 

Paolo De Castro, Member of the Group of the progressive alliance of the socialists and democrats

Niccolò Rinaldi, Vice President of the Group of the alliance of liberals and democrats for Europe

Vincenzo Iovine, Member of the Group of the progressive alliance of the socialists and democrats

Giommaria Uggias, Member of the Group of the alliance of liberals and democrats for Europe

 

PORTUGAL -2 SIGNATORIES

EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT 

Elisa Ferreira, Member of the Group of the progressive alliance of the socialists and democrats

Ana Maria Gomes, Member of the Group of the progressive alliance of the socialists and democrats

 

SWEDEN - 2 SIGNATORIES

EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT 

Göran Färm, Member of the Group of the progressive alliance of the socialists and democrats

Olle Schmidt, Member of the Group of the alliance of liberals and democrats for Europe

 

IRELAND  - 1 SIGNATORY

EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT 

Proinsias De Rossa, Member of the Group of the progressive alliance of the socialists and democrats - MEP 1999-2012


ROMANIA - 1 SIGNATORY

EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

Ioan Enciu, Member of the Group of the alliance of liberals and democrats for Europe

 

FINLAND - 1 SIGNATORY

EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT 

Hannu Takkula, Member of the Group of the alliance of liberals and democrats for Europe   

 

NETHERLANDS- 1 SIGNATORY

EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT 

Jan Mulder, Member of the Group of the alliance of liberals and democrats for Europe  

 

SLOVENIA - 1 SIGNATORY

EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT 

Tanja Fajon, Member of the Group of the progressive alliance of the socialists and democrats


SPAIN- 1 SIGNATORY

EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT 

Miguel Angel Martínez, Member of the Group of the progressive alliance of the socialists and democrats

 

SLOVAKIA - 1 SIGNATORY

EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT 

Boris Zala, Member of the Group of the progressive alliance of the socialists and democrats

 

BULGARIA  - 1 SIGNATORY

EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

Evgeni Kirilov, Member of the Group of the progressive alliance of the socialists and democrats

 

FRANCE - 1 SIGNATORY

EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

Catherine Trautmann, Member of the Group of the progressive alliance of the socialists and democrats