"This is an opportunity to express a basic truth. It is this: that in defining culpability in an historic crime, the educing of evidence is the same as in a judicial investigation of a regular crime. You have to produce evidence. The evidence consists of testimony; it consists of documentation, preferably original documentation; it must have cross reference; it must have cross verification. It may seem to some that because there are remaining witnesses to a crime, that the historical memory is preserved. That is not true. In history it can be twisted out of shape a lot faster than you think and certainly over a slow period of time it can be destroyed beyond recognition. Therefore the value of what is being done here is first of all to preserve historical truth and the action that has been done here over the years by Yad Vashem has been important first of all for tabulating the basic evidence of the greatest crime in history.
The additions of these documents, courtesy of the Axel Springer Group, is an important bulwark of this historical truth because it shows in, shall we say, in graphic detail; it shows the design of murder; the premeditation of mass murder; the execution of mass murder according to a deliberate plan and this is a very important contribution to the body of evidence.
Now, what are we to make of all of this? Well, the first thing is that there is evil in the world. What you see in this exhibit, what you see in these testimonies is the testimony of great evil; pure unadulterated evil. From there flows basically two other things: one is that unopposed; evil expands and devours the innocent, so the second conclusion is “opstreprinskiby”, which means, stops bad things when they are small. And the third: given that we have all this testimony, all this evidence, all this truth and yet still what Primo Levy warned about was, you read Avner Shalev, they still deny and they spread the lie. So from this follows the third logical conclusion: there is evil in the world; if it is unstopped, it expands; it is expanding and it is threatening the same people, the Jewish people, but we know that it only starts with the Jews and then it consumes the rest of mankind.
There is now a test, a test for humanity. There is new Jew hatred in our midst. There are new calls for the extermination of the Jewish State. This is certainly our concern but it is not only our concern. Just as what is displayed here is not only a crime against the Jews, it was a crime against humanity and I think the international community is tested as seldom before in the decades that are past since the fateful defeat of Nazi Germany 65 years ago. It is tested today whether it will stand up to the truth, to the evidence of evil, to the design of mass murder. This is a test of humanity. This is a test of mankind and we shall see in the coming weeks and months how the international community lives up to its responsibility to stop evil before it spreads further.
Thank you very much".
The additions of these documents, courtesy of the Axel Springer Group, is an important bulwark of this historical truth because it shows in, shall we say, in graphic detail; it shows the design of murder; the premeditation of mass murder; the execution of mass murder according to a deliberate plan and this is a very important contribution to the body of evidence.
Now, what are we to make of all of this? Well, the first thing is that there is evil in the world. What you see in this exhibit, what you see in these testimonies is the testimony of great evil; pure unadulterated evil. From there flows basically two other things: one is that unopposed; evil expands and devours the innocent, so the second conclusion is “opstreprinskiby”, which means, stops bad things when they are small. And the third: given that we have all this testimony, all this evidence, all this truth and yet still what Primo Levy warned about was, you read Avner Shalev, they still deny and they spread the lie. So from this follows the third logical conclusion: there is evil in the world; if it is unstopped, it expands; it is expanding and it is threatening the same people, the Jewish people, but we know that it only starts with the Jews and then it consumes the rest of mankind.
There is now a test, a test for humanity. There is new Jew hatred in our midst. There are new calls for the extermination of the Jewish State. This is certainly our concern but it is not only our concern. Just as what is displayed here is not only a crime against the Jews, it was a crime against humanity and I think the international community is tested as seldom before in the decades that are past since the fateful defeat of Nazi Germany 65 years ago. It is tested today whether it will stand up to the truth, to the evidence of evil, to the design of mass murder. This is a test of humanity. This is a test of mankind and we shall see in the coming weeks and months how the international community lives up to its responsibility to stop evil before it spreads further.
Thank you very much".