8
May
2025
Watch
80 years after the end of World War II - freedom, democracy and security as the heritage of Europe (debate)
Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, there may be a small misunderstanding in today's discussion. We celebrate the end of the Second World War: But we must never forget that it was Europe that gave birth to the monster of Nazi-fascism. Hitler and Mussolini were not madmen from Mars but the product of a supremacist ideology that still survives today and does not survive only in those who adhere to extremist formations. We must remember why only with memory can we avoid falling back into the abyss of the past. We need to remember what happened in the lager and the genocide that ensued, in which 6 million Jews, half a million Sinti and millions of Soviet citizens lost their lives. Today someone would like to rewrite that history, excluding from the celebrations the former Soviet peoples, the Russians and the Slavic peoples, but also for reasons of geopolitical convenience. What is happening today in Ukraine cannot be an excuse to cancel the contribution of human lives that the Russians, Poles, Slavic and Soviet peoples have all paid to free all of us from Nazi-fascism: 27 million Soviets, men, women and children massacred, burned alive in villages, sent to the front to defend a Europe that perhaps did not even consider them equals, but which they helped to liberate. Those dead deserve respect and our remembrance. Memory obliges us to peace, truth and respect for all the peoples who have paid the price for freedom.