Ceremony at Stockholm City Hall
26 January, 2000
Mr. Viktor Klima, Federal Chancellor, Austria
"The Holocaust is not only the worst crime of the 20t' century, it is one of the most monstrous crimes in the whole history of mankind. Anyone who does not say this clearly and unambiguously is unsuitable to be entrusted with any responsible public position, either national or international. Any such person has no role to play in political life or in government service. Any person who denies or minimises the Holocaust does not have the basic human qualities that are a precondition for any responsible activity in politics."
(...)
"In the new Europe, it will be one of our foremost tasks to learn how human beings of different cultural and religious origins, of different generations with their special values, can live with one another in dignity and tolerance. If we take this Remembrance Day seriously - and surely this is what we all want to do - we must act so that this kind of Europe becomes more of a reality every day. And another thing: The experiences of the Nazi era teach us that we must spot and fight the growth of inhuman attitudes like racism, xenophobia and anti¥Semitism as soon as they are beginning to take root. I am therefore very pleased that we succeeded in attracting the European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia to Vienna. Thereby we demonstrate and we also confirm this by our active policies in the area of human rights which we pursue both within and outside the European Union - that the Austria of today has learned from its past and actively works for a Europe of tolerance. It is our common duty and responsibility to make sure that there shall never again be any place for inhuman ideologies in our ever more united Europe."
Lelo Nika's orchestra (left) and Anita Lasker Wallfisch with son and grandsons (right).